WMATA is making moves to get rid of ‘ghost buses’

You know when you’re standing in the rain on the corner of H Street waiting for the X2 that NextBus says is only five minutes away when suddenly, poof, it disappears?
Yeah, WMATA knows too. And now they’re making tech moves to get rid of these intriguingly nicknamed but thoroughly annoying “ghost buses.”
The new system, called BusETA, promises “an enhanced user experience for customers using an open-source arrival-prediction algorithm that is quickly becoming a standard in the transit industry,” according to a press release.
BusETA is currently in beta for the next three weeks and WMATA is soliciting user feedback, so go check it out. If you’d rather try a mobile version, Metro instructs you to download “One Bus Away” and select “experimental regions.” A cursory test of the web app at the time of writing revealed there are still some glitches in the program.

Metro invites customers to try BusETA, a new bus arrival prediction systemhttps://t.co/b5116INDCL#wmata pic.twitter.com/VIMJpby3jb

— Metro Forward (@wmata) March 9, 2016

WMATA plans to integrate BusETA into NextBus — including user feedback — next month. This, the transit agency said, will allow for “a seamless transition for customers and third-party developers.”