Michael Frumin Hired to Get Citi Bike Tech Back on Track

Day 2 @citibike, so much to do. Find me if you are an engineer/hacker and want to play a role in the future of bikeshare.

— Michael Frumin (@fruminator) October 30, 2014

The company that runs Citi Bike has made a big hire, bringing on someone known for improving the customer experience by introducing new technology to the MTA. No, not new CEO Jay Walder. The newest employee at Alta Bicycle Share is its first-ever vice president for technology, Michael Frumin.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Walder said the company would be hiring for the position this week. It looks like he meant “immediately.”

Frumin has his work cut out for him at Alta. Citi Bike has struggled with a poor user interface at kiosk screens and flawed software that causes problems throughout the system.

Frumin is best known for leading the MTA’s Bus Time project, which brings real-time arrival information to riders. (Streetsblog’s parent organization, OpenPlans, helped develop the technology behind Bus Time.)

When Frumin joined the MTA in 2010 to work on Bus Time, Walder was the agency boss. The MTA rolled out the first Bus Time route in 2011, then expanded the capability borough by borough starting in 2012. With most of the work on Bus Time complete, last year Frumin took on a new position as deputy director of recovery and resiliency for subways at the MTA.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Frumin is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School. He received a computer science degree from Stanford before going to MIT for a masters degree in transportation and operations research. He lives in Brooklyn.