At a recent discussion with young professionals in Tampa, Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe remarked that Hillsborough's County's bus system agency (HART) needs to provide more incentives for people to take the bus. He said one way would be to make sure that WiFi was included on every bus, to make it a more enjoyable experience for riders.
Sorry to break it to you, Commissioner, but that's not going to happen.
At Monday morning's HART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit) meeting, Rick Fitz-Gordon, manager of information systems for the agency, told the Major Projects and Legislative Committee that in part because HART couldn't find a vendor to offer WiFi for free on buses, they're not going forward with the idea. (Sharpe is a HART board member, but not a member of the committee meeting today and thus wasn't at the meeting.)
Fitz-Gordon said that the companies HART spoke with didn't believe they could get a decent return on investment by funding a WiFi system, so it was a no-go.
He also said that with the preponderance of smartphones and tablets, WiFi wasn't such a major issue anyhow.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.