If you've ever had to wait for a bus, you know the question: When will it get here?

For riders of the Metropolitan Area Express bus line, satellites will take away the guesswork, starting next year.

That's when the Regional Transportation Commission hopes to have a Global Positioning System satellite-enabled message board network up and running at all 22 MAX bus stops along Las Vegas Boulevard North. The network will post estimated arrival times for the next two buses.

Planners expect the network to be operating sometime in early 2007. Installation and maintenance for the first five years of operations on that route is expected to cost just over $327,000.

Tracking devices on each bus would fix the vehicle's precise location using GPS satellite signals before relaying that location to a central computer, which would then calculate estimated arrival times.

That information would then be transmitted to message boards posting how many minutes are left before the next two arrivals.

The commission also intends to have that arrival information available through its Web site at rtcsnv.com. Users would click on a bus stop location on a map to get expected arrival times for a particular location.

If the system proves effective and practical, engineers would like to see similar displays installed at various Las Vegas Valley transit terminals, high-volume routes such as those on Paradise Road and Maryland Parkway, and planned express bus routes on Boulder Highway and between the Las Vegas Monorail's Sahara hotel stop and downtown Las Vegas.