ASMSU worked on the Capital Area Transportation Authority, or CATA, app in previous years but has struggled to get further than the early steps in the process.

Mozina said ASMSU is planning to talk to the CATA about the suggestion.

“The app would be pretty helpful for people living in the dorms. … It makes the CATA system, as a whole, more efficient,” he said.

“It’s a good idea since a lot of people on campus don’t know when the bus is coming,” advertising junior My Ha said.

“Sometimes (the bus) doesn’t come and then they would have to call (CATA) to know exactly when it will come,” Ha said. “It’s very frustrating.”

CATA officials said they currently are focused on providing their customers with real-time information online and via email and text message.

“The availability of real-time information would indeed be beneficial to our customers, which is why we are diligently working on online and email and text-messaging solutions,” said Laurie Robison, director of marketing and public information officer at CATA.

Robison said CATA has no current intentions of developing an app at the moment, instead putting more of a focus on the overall accuracy of the data first.

“Once the accuracy and reliability of our data are verified, it will be available to qualified developers,” Robison said.

Mozina said the idea of developing the app came from ASMSU’s interest in providing students with a better on-campus experience. The undergraduate student government will be looking for student programmers to create the app once the idea becomes an actual project.

“We (at ASMSU) are looking toward engaging students to help them out and nourish their academics,” Mozina said. “We understand something like this (project) is expensive so we’re trying to create something that wouldn’t take that much money.”