Wel­ling­ton pub­lic trans­port has made anoth­er great leap for­ward. From the mar­gin of a loc­al com­munity news­pa­per:

Bus users across Wel­ling­ton can use their cell­phones to find out when the next sched­uled ser­vice will arrive. The ser­vice allows pro­spect­ive pas­sen­gers to find the times of the next three buses due by txting a four-digit num­ber – the bus-stop ID num­ber, dis­played on bus-stop signs – to BUS (287). A reply will arrive with­in seconds.

Now note that this will not tell you when the next bus will actu­ally arrive, but (pre­sum­ably) give you the next three buses due as per the timetable. So not hugely help­ful when your bus has not shown up for no appar­ent reas­on, and nor is it as cool as the digit­al signs I’ve seen in Auck­land’s inner sub­urbs, but still a start. Now can they just sort out integ­rated tick­et­ing? Kthxbai.