Will real-time OCTA bus arrival times come to your mobile device in the future?

It certainly seems so. Earlier this year, their customer service roundtable made it clear that OCTA staff were looking at mobile technologies to enhance customer service. And their recent OCTA Operations Observer newsletter in July shed some light on their plans:

SMS System - With the leadership of the Marketing Department; Transit, Customer Relations, and External Affairs are in the process of implementing a Short Message Service, better known as texting, whereby a customer at a bus stop could text a message to the Authority with the route and bus stop ID and in return get a response indicating the next 3 passing times at the stop of the route indicated. At this time, we will be providing scheduled arrival time only at the bus stop. Later, once the other enhancements of other systems are completed, the passing time will be real time.

This capability will enable our customers to save time and plan their trips more efficiently.

Due to budget cuts, OCTA has removed all of its timetables from its bus stops and reduced its timetable printing, making it difficult for passengers to find out when their bus is supposed to arrive. There's no indication as to when the SMS (text messaging) schedule announcements will be implemented, but this will be  great for those lucky passengers who have mobile phones with text messaging plans.