New technology could be coming to Wausau buses soon

New technology long found in other transit systems could soon be making its way to Wausau buses. 

Wausau Transit Director Arran Hersey told the city’s Transit Commission last week that a request for proposals to find a company to complete the upgrades is expected to go out in the next month or so. 

Those upgrades include internal technology that would help the transit department better track buses but also will include an app that will help riders know where their bus is. That will likely be a relief to many passengers who right now might not know whether they got to the bus stop on time or whether the bus has already made the stop. 

It will also help the transit department track problems with a bus, which they will see in real-time, Hersey says, and allow the department to stop doing a lot of paperwork it had still been doing on paper. 

The request for proposals would be out for six months, which means a vendor could be ready by late spring or early summer. 

Transit Commission Chair Becky McElhaney says the technology is something they’ve been anticipating for a while and that it’s finally on the way is exciting.