@OCTranspoAlerts

Ottawa, Ontario

@OCTranspoAlerts provides unofficial notices of transit service disruptions by tweeting Ottawa transit service disruption alerts. Although not affiliated with OC Transpo, this feed automatically tweets run cancellation notices based on OCTranspo.com information and route delay alerts based on Open Data via OCBus.ca.

Open Data is also used to estimate the percentage of delayed buses at any given time, a typical bus delay, and a range of the delays for transit users.

Since 2010, @OCTranspoAlerts has been providing updates to thousands of followers including various media outlets, city councillors, and of course, OC Transpo passengers.

Sometimes mistaken for the official account, this feed has influenced the frequency of OC Transpo's online service updates and the language used in the transit agency's notices. Its tweets are seen 6300 times per day and 190 000 times per month on average.

@OCTranspoAlerts notices can sometimes be heard on CBC Radio and 1310News traffic reports. The feed has been featured and mentioned in:

OttawaCitizen.com (March 5, 2015)

CFRA News (March 1, 2013)

CTV Ottawa (February 8, 2012)

OpenFile Ottawa (January 14, 2012)

24 Hours Ottawa (August 4, 2011)

CBC Ottawa online, radio (July 14, 2011)

Ottawa Citizen (July 2, 2011)

CBC Radio's All in a Day with Alan Neal (December 15, 2010)

About our alerts:

--Trip cancellation updates are posted only if there are at least 10 minutes left in the cancelled trip.

--The most popular routes (except the 95 and 97 because they are frequent) 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 85, 86, 87, 93, 96, 98, 106, 111, 112, 114, 118 and 176 are posted .

--Route delay notifications are tweeted when a bus route has 3+ trips with 15+ minute delays in the same direction and when at least 75% of trips are delayed by 15+ minutes.