Cloud migration, resilient communications and integrated vehicle data are helping LBT improve daily service while preparing for the demands of major events.
Long Beach Transit is preparing for a future that will place extraordinary demands on public transportation in Southern California. Major international events will bring new travel patterns and heavier passenger volumes to the region, while everyday customers will continue to expect accurate information, dependable service and prompt responses when conditions change.
The agency’s technology program is designed to meet both realities. Working with Vontas, LBT has modernized the systems that connect buses, operators, dispatchers, supervisors, maintenance personnel and customers. Its evolving intelligent transportation systems environment gives frontline teams faster access to information and reduces manual work that once slowed communication.
For LBT, however, the value of that environment is measured on an ordinary service day as much as during a major event. The agency is building toward a connected platform that can scale when demand rises, then continue supporting reliable service long after the crowds leave.
“The vision is about creating something that lasts,” said Dr. Pretty George, vice president of information technology for LBT. “The technology decisions we make today should not only solve the needs in front of us, but position LBT for what comes next. That is the legacy we are building.”
The Operational Question
Vontas has worked with LBT for many years, providing technology at the center of the agency’s bus operations. When George assumed her role in January 2024, she inherited a technology assessment completed the previous year and a clear CEO mandate for LBT to advance in the technology space.
LBT supervisor, transit delivery using system within daily operations.
George brought experience in health care technology, natural language processing and machine learning. Her first step at LBT was to define the operational questions the agency needed to answer.
“We’re looking at what question we are trying to solve at the end of the day,” she said. “We wanted to give our employees the best tools possible, so they have the insights they need to make informed decisions.”
LBT then mapped a transformation journey that it plans to complete by 2028. Bus operations became the first stage. The agency examined employee workflows and looked for ways the solution could help staff work more effectively through a consolidated operating environment.
Kenneth McDonald, CEO of LBT, said technology became the platform the agency would use to improve efficiency and support long-term sustainability. “We don’t operate the organization we operated 20 years ago,” he said. “Technology became the platform, for lack of a better word, that we would ride upon to get us there.”
The practical goal is straightforward: know where a bus is, recognize an issue quickly and give operations personnel the information needed to respond. Bringing that information together reduces the need to move among separate systems or call another department for a basic status update.
That approach is visible in LBT’s near-zero-emission fleet, which includes compressed natural gas vehicles and 79 battery-electric buses. In the past, an operations employee who needed the charge level of an electric bus had to contact maintenance. That information is now available within the environment.
“You have increased your end user’s ability to make insightful decisions quickly,” George said.
LBT Information Technology Team planning session.
Moving the Operating Platform to the Cloud
A central part of the modernization effort was migrating LBT’s Vontas OnRoute environment, historically known within the agency as TransitMaster, from an on-premises deployment to the cloud. The change improved availability and supported George’s objective of giving users a single operational view.
Lee Burner, vice president of transit service delivery and planning at LBT, said the cloud direction aligned with a broader change underway across the agency’s internal software and hardware. Transit agencies have relied on platform-based systems for decades, he said, while modern tools increasingly make data and services accessible through the cloud.
For Burner, the attraction is tied to better information and stronger customer experience. More reliable data gives the agency a firmer basis for managing service, while a connected environment provides room for future development.
Latrece Brisker, superintendent, transit service delivery the operational value in real-time accountability. Dispatchers and supervisors can monitor service, track performance and respond more quickly to disruptions. The platform supports the daily decisions that help keep service safe and dependable.
“Having real-time information is critical for our customer and for our operations side of the house,” Brisker said. “It makes it easier to monitor service and quickly respond to certain situations or disruptions.”
Vontas also helped LBT convert a manual announcement-management process into a networked one. Previously, employees updated onboard announcements with SD cards. Incorrect or failed announcements might not come to the agency’s attention until a customer or operator reported them.
The cloud dashboard and reporting tools now allow the agency to identify announcement problems directly. Updates can be distributed over the network, limiting opportunities for human error and giving staff greater visibility into whether the onboard system is working as intended.
“We went from manually updating announcements on buses using SD cards to having it done over the cloud and across the network,” said Marcus McGhee, manager of information technology applications for LBT. “Now we can see through the cloud dashboard and reporting when something is not working correctly with our announcements.”
That connection extends to operators. When an operator identifies a problem at a location, an onboard button can capture the location and send the information directly to the information technology team. The agency gains actionable field data without relying on multiple handoffs.
Information Technology Team configuration meeting.
Building Resilient Bus Communications
Modernizing the software platform required LBT to strengthen the communications layer beneath it. The agency adopted a cellular-first approach for bus communications while retaining its radio network as a backup.
Akinwale Akinyinka, network engineer for LBT, said approximately 95 percent of the fleet’s communications now travel over cellular service. The previous radio environment had coverage gaps where communications with dispatch could become slow or unavailable. Moving the primary connection to 5G addressed those gaps, while the retained radio capability provides redundancy if cellular service is interrupted.
The conversion demanded extensive hands-on work. LBT replaced SIM cards throughout the fleet, changed some onboard routers and assigned static IP addresses that make individual vehicles easier to identify. Vontas helped configure cellular as the primary communications path.
LBT also worked with Verizon to use Frontline service, which prioritizes communications for public-safety and emergency-response users. McGhee said that capability becomes especially significant when a large gathering congests ordinary cellular networks. Whenever consumer traffic strains network capacity, priority service helps preserve the link between the bus and the communication center.
“Moving to Frontline gives us greater confidence in our ability to maintain reliable communications during large events,” McGhee said. “It helps ensure our buses remain connected to the communication center when network demand is at its highest.”
The faster connection is also changing safety workflows.
LBT personnel can now request video in real time, view a live feed or review playback while the bus remains in service. The safety department gains earlier access to evidence and can begin resolving an incident without waiting for a vehicle to complete its assignment.
LBT receiving the 2026 Think Transit Excellence Award for Planning and Partnership.
Making Technology Visible Through Better Service
Some of LBT’s most valuable improvements are almost invisible to customers. Customers do not need to know how an announcement reached a bus or how dispatch obtained vehicle information. They experience the outcome through timely information and a trip that feels seamless.
Automated headsigns offer one example. The technology reduces the need for operators to manage sign changes and distributes destination information more quickly. LBT also adjusted the system to keep the next destination displayed during a layover. Previously, a blank sign could leave a waiting customer unsure where the bus would go next.
The implementation preserved operator control. If automation does not perform as expected, the operator can still intervene. That balance reflects LBT’s broader approach of using automation to remove avoidable work while retaining the judgment of employees who understand conditions on the street.
Sergio Ortiz, manager, fleet and facility maintenance at LBT, said the project began with a customer-focused observation made while riding the system. At layovers, operators shut down their buses, and destination signs could still be rebooting when service resumed. LBT first configured the signs to remain illuminated for 30 minutes after shutdown, helping waiting customers identify the route.
The agency then worked with Vontas to automate the signs through the operator’s mobile data terminal login.
“As soon as the operator sits in the driver’s seat, does the pre-trip and logs into the MDT, that sends the signal and everything comes alive as one,” Ortiz said. “The operator is not stressed in the middle of the route about changing the destination sign. The destination sign will pick that up and do it automatically.”
Brisker said customers should encounter accurate information, improved bus tracking and quicker notice of delays. Those details help a customer answer the immediate questions that shape a transit decision: Where is the bus? Is it coming? Is it delayed? Should another option be considered?
“The experience they should feel is a seamless and consistent trip,” she said. “Communicating and getting that information quickly to a customer who is using public transportation should be the goal, so that their experience from trip to trip is reliable and dependable.”
Building the Workforce Alongside the Technology
LBT’s implementation depended on cooperation across information technology, operations and maintenance. George emphasized that no technology project succeeds without the operators, supervisors, superintendents and maintenance employees who use and support the system.
Vontas representatives came to LBT, observed employee workflows and trained users. The agency also maintained a test environment where teams could validate changes and become comfortable with them before go-live.
McGhee described training as one of the largest parts of the project. Communication-center personnel, dispatchers, supervisors, maintenance employees and mechanics needed to learn updated applications and procedures.
The transition was staged so employees did not have to learn an entirely unfamiliar system at once. That continuity supported faster adoption and gave the project team opportunities to incorporate frontline observations.
McDonald said the agency’s digital transformation must be accompanied by investment in its workforce.
“We also have to train our employees to utilize the tools that we’re getting so that they can be the people who transition with the technology,” he said. “As we do this digital transformation, we also have to look at our employee or personnel transformation in this process.”
The feedback loop continued after deployment. George sometimes checked headsigns while traveling to work and contacted operations when a display appeared questionable. Those direct checks helped the information technology team determine whether the automated process was behaving correctly in live service. They also reinforced that the deployment belonged to the employees using it, rather than to a single department.
George saw proof of that engagement when employees identified a repeatable software bug. Rather than treating the discovery as a setback, the team reviewed it together and sent it to Vontas for resolution. The exchange showed that users had become invested enough to examine the system closely and help improve it.
“When you have a strong vendor-customer relationship, you have an opportunity to make the technology better together. The enhancements we make may start with a need at LBT, but ultimately they can create value for every agency that uses the system,” George said.
Scaling for the Region’s Next Chapter
LBT’s service reaches 14 cities, and the agency expects its connected environment to support growth in ridership, service expansion and changing travel patterns. Large events provide an early proving ground for that capacity.
Akinyinka described a recent FIFA event as a test run for the Olympics in the Los Angeles County region. LBT’s onboard cameras, automatic passenger counters, upgraded routers and communications systems worked together as the agency coordinated with internal service-planning and customer-service groups. The operation provided safe transportation between pickup locations and the stadium while also producing lessons for future events.
Brisker said correctly built systems should scale for a major event and then continue supporting normal operations. The same platform can help LBT monitor regular service, communicate across departments and agencies, adjust to service-area changes and respond to increasing ridership.
Burner describes the larger objective as modernizing public transit. He sees a future in which artificial intelligence supports predictive maintenance and dynamic scheduling, helping the agency forecast conditions and reduce delays. Those capabilities build on the reliable, connected data environment LBT is establishing now.
The agency’s desired result is rider confidence. Internal feedback from operators, frontline employees and staff has been positive, Burner said. Externally, customers judge the program through the information they receive and the reliability they encounter on each trip.
CEO McDonald concluded, “The partnership with Vontas is bearing fruit from LBT’s technology assessment and the ensuing plans to modernize the agency.”