Enhancing Public Transit With Wi-Fi

"Laura Jones has a daily 45-minute commute aboard a King County Metro Transit (KCMT) bus to and from work. For this account coordinator at Lewis PR in Seattle, that's 90 minutes of lost productivity. So, you'll often find Jones with her MacBook flipped open, checking e-mail, surfing the Web, or doing something work-related, thanks to KCMT's free Wi-Fi access.

"45 minutes is a long time back and forth," Jones said. "So, any of that time I can use to do something productive is always worth it."

By deploying a wireless infrastructure, public transportation companies, like King Metro, are offering free Wi-Fi access for riders-an amenity that could help boost ridership.

"Rail and bus companies are using Wi-Fi to entice more passengers to use their service," said Esme Vos, an intellectual property lawyer based in Amsterdam and founder of MuniWireless.com."