TransLinked Vancouver's unofficial transit community blog

Jeffery at Metroblogging Vancouver has documented a SkyTrain service disruption yesterday (July 28th, 2007) as the result of an apparent medical emergency at 29th Avenue Station. He's got video, which contains audio of the announcement on the SkyTrain PA system and photographs of the aftermath. This was during a very high traffic day for a Saturday for the automated light rail system, as the Celebration of Light was taking several suburban travelers downtown to see the fireworks.

I'll let others tackle the question of whether this counts as journalism at more length (I think it absolutely does), but this and another disruption, apparently near New Westminster and Columbia stations got Karen and I thinking about two things: service disruption alerts to not-yet-SkyTrain-passengers (that is, those who are en route to SkyTrain after having left their point of origin) and how service disruptions could be incorporated into the TransLink Trip Planner. The first part is fairly easy: many transit system offer service disruption information via email of mobile devices. A quick search around the Web reveals that quite a few transportation authorities and services have it where you can only get notifications during a certain time (for instance, if you don't need a notification after 1 AM). The second part would be much more difficult, introducing another degree of variability into the system. Conceivably it would be possible, feasible even, to program in the planner a method to note that track between such and such stations are inoperative, but the system would have to make clear that it's a one-time, temporary suggestion.