TuftsLife will expand its JoeyTracker service next semester to incorporate the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) and School of Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) shuttles, but problems with GPS coverage continue to haunt the online service.
JoeyTracker, a webpage dedicated to tracking the movements of the shuttle between Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus and Davis Square, has been beset by problems since its establishment in 2008. At the beginning of the semester, TuftsLife worked with the Office for Campus Life (OCL) on the installation of information displays in the Mayer Campus Center that would display the amount of time until the shuttle's arrival.
Months later, the displays are not in use, and the service is often hit by outages. Nevertheless, Louis Galvez III, the administrative service coordinator for the Department of Public and Environmental Safety, said he plans to install an additional GPS unit in the shuttle for NEC and SMFA students.
The NEC shuttle's GPS has already been ordered and most likely will be installed in the coming weeks, according to Galvez.
TuftsLife Chief Operating Officer Michael Vastola, a senior who is now spearheading the JoeyTracker project, said Friday that he expects the campus center screens to be working by next semester. Vastola is also the technical manager for the Daily.
The screens themselves have been in place since the summer, according to Office for Campus Life (OCL) Director Joe Golia. One is located in the window of the OCL office in the campus center, and the other is located inside the campus center lobby.
Vastola said the TuftsLife team has not been able to devote time to working on the displays. "This semester has been really busy," he said.
The team now plans to connect the screens to the JoeyTracker service over winter break, though testing will not begin until the bus starts running during the spring semester, Vastola said.
Golia hopes to see the screens functioning as soon as possible, though this depends on when campus center lobby renovations are complete. The renovations have been underway since this summer.
"We purchased the equipment and have everything installed. We'd like them done sooner rather than later," Golia said. All lobby renovations should be completed before the start of next semester, including an informational touchscreen display at the campus center's information and ticket booth, according to Golia.
Vastola said TuftsLife has funds available to purchase a third screen for the JoeyTracker but is in the process of determining where it should be located.
Originally, Vastola preferred to put it in Davis Square, but an uphill location such as the Olin Center is now more likely, he said. TuftsLife tried unsuccessfully to locate a Davis Square storefront willing to install an informational screen in its window, he said.
The JoeyTracker began as a Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate project in 2008 before TuftsLife took over the project last year.
TuftsLife revamped the service in September with three new, more reliable GPS units, two of which are permanently installed in the buses, Vastola said.
Vastola said that though the JoeyTracker site is not always reliable, problems can occur when drivers from Joseph's Transportation, which operates the shuttle service, fail to place the third, portable GPS unit into their shuttle.
Vastola said TuftsLife relies on user feedback to know if the JoeyTracker is not working.
"It's not something that's our fault, but people need to tell us about the problem — we need to be able to fix it," Vastola said. "We're always open to suggestions on our website."
The JoeyTracker service remains the target of a high volume of website traffic. With over 8,286 views in November, as of Friday, it is the third-most trafficked page on TuftsLife, according to Vastola.
Galvez said the School of Arts and Sciences agreed to purchase a GPS for the shuttle after he spoke with several deans who are involved with the NEC program.
The Department of Public and Environmental Safety will fund the monthly payments for satellite coverage to keep the devices operational from month to month, according to Galvez.
"We decided as a whole this would just be a really good idea to give the same courtesy to NEC students as students going to Davis," Galvez said. "Especially since the NEC shuttle has such a big route. If you miss a shuttle, it's about two hours from one to the other."
The NEC shuttle will have a TuftsLife webpage like the existing page for JoeyTracker, as well as a page at m.tufts.edu, a new site designed specifically for easy mobile access from smartphones, Galvez said.
