Difficulties with the chronically problematic GPS technology that tracks the two shuttles between Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus and Davis Square continue to stand in the way of consistent accuracy on the screen displays in the Mayer Campus Center and on the JoeyTracker website.
The website, revamped in the fall but plagued by unreliability since its creation, and the two screen displays, which were installed in the campus center in September, are designed to indicate the number of minutes until one of the shuttles is expected to arrive at its campus center stop.
TuftsLife Chief Operating Officer Michael Vastola, the head of the JoeyTracker project, said he completed coding of the screens' displays over winter break, though they are still often blank or incorrect because of inconsistent cooperation from Joseph's Transportation in turning on the GPS units installed in the vehicles, commonly known as the Joey.
"A problem that we're having now still is that we're working with Joseph's to make sure that the Joey GPS units are always on the Joeys and always running," said Vastola, a senior who is also the technical manager for the Daily.
Louis Galvez III, administrative service coordinator for the Department of Public and Environmental Safety, attributed the JoeyTracker's erratic availability to the alternation between vehicles on certain days of the week.
The main Joey shuttle, which operates alone Sunday through Wednesday, has a GPS permanently installed in the vehicle, Galvez said. The additional shuttle that runs the route between campus and Davis Square on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights uses a portable GPS device that must be placed in it before each use.
"Joseph's doesn't always use the same shuttle for the Thursday night shuttle," Galvez said. "So we're trying to get all of the bus drivers to understand that when they drive that Thursday night shuttle they have to get the GPS and bring it with them."
Vastola hopes both the JoeyTracker and the screens will be back in sync with the GPS units this week.
"It depends on Joseph's," he said.
The screens themselves were installed over the summer as part of renovations to the campus center lobby, according to Office for Campus Life Director Joe Golia.
Vastola next wants to install additional JoeyTracker screens across campus and in Davis Square.
"I think the next natural location is either Carmichael or Wren [Halls]," Vastola said. "We really want to get one in Davis, but the problem in Davis is finding a place that will actually host it."
A similar GPS system purchased last semester for tracking the shuttles for the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) and School of the Museum of Fine Arts — expected to have been installed during last year's spring semester — have yet to be put in use, Galvez said.
"We're attempting to get it up and running," Galvez said.
The tracker for the NEC shuttle will not have a screen display, though the information will be available online, according to Vastola.
Golia hopes that the use of screens to find Joey information will become a permanent fixture of student life.
"My hope is that it really becomes [an] established system, one in which students can track the Joey and everyone gets used to the display and really looks at it," Golia said.
