RTA now offering commuter alert service for Rapid rail riders

CLEVELAND - The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is now offering status alerts for riders of its rail system.

RTA is calling the pilot service “Commuter Alerts.” It’s only available for Rapid rail riders at this point, but may be expanded to include other RTA services in the future.

Riders can sign up for either e-mail or text alerts at RTA’s website, and they’ll receive notifications when there is 10-minute or more disruption in the schedule that would impact the Red, Green, Blue or Waterfront lines. Other unusual circumstances may warrant an alert message as well, RTA said.

Subscribers can also choose specific lines and times for which they want to get alerts, so they aren’t bothered with information that doesn’t affect them directly.

“We utilize Twitter, Facebook and the media to communicate with the public for major issues, but this allows customers to ‘opt-in’ and permits us to provide them with information that is important to their commute,” said Joe Calabrese, CEO and General Manager of RTA. “It is targeted and specific to each customer, and can be adjusted by the customer if their schedules change. We believe that this service will keep our customers well informed with quick notifications to allow them to best utilize their time.”

Here is a sample message:
“The Red Line West 3:26 from Tower City is experiencing a 10-minute delay due severe weather conditions.”

You can sign up to receive the alerts here:
http://commuteralerts.riderta.com/CommuterAlerts/Registration.aspx