Staff
Tourists and area residents wanting to cross the border into Canada here, as well as at other ports of entry across the country, now can use Twitter to find out if there is a lineup.
The Canada Border Services Agency announced Tuesday it has launched a three-month pilot project to broadcast estimated wait times for crossing the border.
People with a Twitter account can go to Twitter.com, search for CBSA_BWT, and choose to follow the CBSA account, after which time they will receive updates to all border wait times across Canada.
For each of those crossings, CBSA is giving regular updates (or “tweeting”) whether motorists can expect a delay, and if so, an estimate of how long the wait could be.
For example, CBSA “tweeted” that the wait time at the border crossing here at 1 p.m. this past Saturday was one hour and 45 minutes.
Each crossing has a “hashtag” specific to it—the one for the Fort Frances, for example, is #CBSA_FFB.
Users can search for, and save, specific “hashtags” so they can find them easier in the future.
A complete list of “hashtags” for each border crossing participating in the pilot project can be found at www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/new-neuf/twitter-eng.html
On its website, CBSA said its Twitter feed is an automated service that “tweets” when updates are made to individual border wait times.
Twitter occasionally may be unavailable, however, and CBSA accepts no responsibility for lack of service owing to Twitter downtime.
For the information of those following them on Twitter, CBSA has said it will not respond to requests to follow organizations or individuals, nor will it “re-tweet” content from other users.
But CBSA added it “will welcome feedback and ideas from all of [their] followers, and endeavour to join the conversation where possible.”
The agency also said it will read all @replies to ensure any emerging themes and helpful suggestions are forwarded to the relevant people.
