WiFi Study
We’re working to make our service better.
From November 1 to 30, 2021, we’re conducting a ridership study to help us understand how our customers use transit. During the study, Wi-Fi sensors will track smartphones as they enter Calgary Transit CTrain stations.
Right now, to get an understanding about how our customers use transit throughout the system, we manually count customers at stations along the CTrain network, which can be difficult and can provide incomplete information. This WiFi study will provide us a more accurate picture of ridership numbers, the length of time our customers are waiting at our stations, and where trips are starting and ending on the CTrain network. This will help us plan our service to ensure we’re meeting customer needs, now and in the future.
| If you don’t want your smartphone to be part of our study, you can turn off your smartphone’s WiFi mode when you’re on CT property. |
Here’s what’s going to happen
Wifi sensors have been installed at seven CTrain stations:
- Victoria Park (Red Line)
- Bridgeland (Blue Line)
- Sunalta (Blue Line)
- Sunnyside (Red Line)
- University (Red Line)
- SAIT (Red Line)
- Banff Trail (Red Line)
When a smartphone enters one of these stations, WiFi sensors will capture some information from it. This will include its:
- MAC (Media Access Control) address,
- RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator), and
- Date and time stamp
This is information that a smartphone sends out when it’s searching for a WiFi signal. It doesn’t give us any personal or identifiable information about you.
Immediately after this information is collected, it will be sent to a central data location where it will be made anonymous. We will never have access to your phone’s MAC address or any other identifiable information.
Once a smartphone’s information is transferred to the central data location, the system will create an anonymous report based on the data collected. That data cannot be linked to the smartphone’s original MAC address.
When the pilot is complete, all smartphone data will be permanently deleted and we’ll use the anonymous report to made decisions about future transit planning.
If you have any questions about the collection or use of your information, please contact the Calgary Transit FOIP Program Administrator at 403-262-1000 or by mail at:
Mail Code 166SG
PO Box 2100, Station M
Calgary, AB T2P 2M5