280291 external_news 1393931951 1475893619 Broward County, Florida, approved by unanimous vote the allocation of $12.6 million for a bus locator and dispatcher system. Research has shown that giving passengers an accurate forecast makes them feel better about the entire transit experience, said Kari Edison Watkins, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It can be more important to riders than increasing the frequency or timeliness of buses, for example. Watkins was part of a university research team that created an app called OneBusAway, now in use in Tampa, Seattle and Atlanta. She said she found that passengers waiting for buses feel a warped sense of time. "What happens is — and this is typical in all waiting situations, like when you're waiting in the doctor's office — you feel like you're waiting longer than you actually are," Watkins said "[But] when you have this information, it brings your perception of that wait in line with how long you're actually waiting."

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