Since its introduction this semester, the campus community has been eager to see whether the new bus system would be any improvement from the beleaguered CATS system.The change seems to be a hit to the public transit system in Baton Rouge — a showdown between public mass transit and privately contracted service.From a customer standpoint, the results are clear: Tiger Trails has been a marked improvement from its predecessor.One of the main complaints with the old CATS system (besides the ugly paint jobs) was the system was unreliable. Reliability, of course, is central to a transportation system, especially when its riders must be somewhere at a specific time. CATS was never able to convince its riders that its buses would be at the stop on time.In a city with notorious congestion, this would seem like an unsurmountable obstacle.But under Tiger Trails, riders feel as though they have a more reliable system. The new bus system accomplished this goal by using GPS trackers on their buses, relaying real-time information about the location of the buses to riders. Not only is this information available (and fascinating to watch) through home computers, riders with portable devices can check bus statuses at the stop.By contrast, the previous bus system was unable to provide heavily trafficked stops with a basic poster mapping the bus routes. In addition to being reliable, it’s important for a bus system to let riders know where they are going.While Tiger Trails should be recognized for its improvement, we hope that they realize that the bar was low to begin with. Much innovation will be necessary in order to give students a first-class transit system.
 
 
 
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