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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE


October 2003

511 Phone Service Logs Millionth Call

Mikal Mekki
A call a day – and sometimes several – to 511 keeps traffic congestion at bay for Mikal Mekki.
(Photo: Peter Beeler)
Mikal Mekki calls 511 every morning, sometimes more often, to check on Bay Area traffic conditions. So the odds were good that the millionth call to the region’s popular, toll-free travel information service would come from his cell phone. Sure enough, when the meter clicked past the million-call mark on a Tuesday morning in mid-September, Mekki was on the other end of the line.

“I live in my car,” said the 29-year-old San Leandro resident, whose work as an independent sales associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. takes him throughout the Bay Area and beyond. “I might be driving to the South Bay one day, into San Francisco the next, or out to Antioch or Stockton. The day 511 rolled over one million, I was calling to check traffic on the bridges before going to an appointment in San Francisco.

“The voice activation is really sharp,” Mekki continued, pointing out one of the key differences between 511 and the Bay Area’s previous travel information number, which required callers to navigate through a push-button choice menu. “I love high-tech gadgetry, and this is so easy that my son, who is 6, and my daughter, who is 4, can call out the freeway numbers for me while I’m driving. They like it so much that sometimes they argue over who gets to talk to 511.”

Mekki said that 511 helps him use his time more efficiently. “The fact that the information is real-time allows me to make decisions about which way to go. It’s accurate. It’s on time. And it’s always available.”
— John Goodwin

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