Better Faster Cheaper - How Outside Developers Can Help Transit Agencies Inform Their Riders
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Talk by Joe Hughes from the first TransitCampBayArea event about public transit schedule data and how transit agencies can benefit by allowing outside developers to create third-party transit sites.
Transcript of Better Faster Cheaper - How Outside Developers Can Help Transit Agencies Inform Their Riders
better faster cheaper
Joe HughesGoogle
Goal: Communicate better with riders
Goal: Better internal information
Problem: Agencies are strapped for cash and
developers
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"> <head> <script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=ABQIAAAAzr2EBOXUKnm_jVnk0OJI7xSosDVG8KKPE1-m51RBrvYughuyMxQ-i1QfUnH94QxWIa6N4U6MouMmBA" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> function initialize() { if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) { var stop = new GLatLng(33.88508,-117.84383);
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map_canvas")); map.setCenter(stop, 19); map.setMapType(G_SATELLITE_MAP);
map.addOverlay(new GMarker(stop)); map.openInfoWindow(stop, document.createTextNode( "NB LINDA VISTA/ROSE FS PLAC Stop ID: 5731")); } }
</script> </head> <body onload="initialize()" onunload="GUnload()"> <div id="map_canvas" style="width: 800px; height: 600px"></div> </body></html>
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.88508,-117.84383+(NB+LINDA+VISTA%2FROSE+FS+PLAC+Stop+ID:+5731)&t=k&z=19
Most of this data is scraped or hand-entered
There’s got to be a better way.
the publicthe agency
Of course, the truth is in between. Within every bureaucracy, there are people working to make things better.
The truth is somewhere in between.
A digression
In 2005, we launched Google Transit, a fast trip planner that made it easy to flip through different results for a given transit trip.
Last year, public transit became a first-class citizen in Maps. This means that it’s easy to discover whether public transit makes sense for your trip...
How does Google get this data?
How can we collect this data, for the whole world?
...and make it easier for the next developer?
So we started from something that worked (Portland TriMet data dump), and created the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)
It’s CSV; easy to understand, and maps well to the DB table-oriented workflow that agency IT staff are familiar with
It’s an open format, and its further development is decided by the community of users.
The agencies prepare these feed and put them on their server for Google to retrieve... but they’re also usable by other developers if the agency is willing
Agency
http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif
Your transitproject?
Devin’s hack is able to use other agency GTFS
Think of outside developers as a highly motivated R&D lab
Be willing to adopt successful projects
The ideal outcome:Agencies get new toolsDevelopers get support
and recognition
Google Maps API learn how to make a mashup
code.google.com/apis/maps
Headway Wiki get inspired by what others have done
headwayblog.com/wiki
Google Transit group talk to like-minded folks
groups.google.com/group/googletransit
GTFS format learn how to publish your schedules for reuse
maps.google.com/transitfeed
Contact me get in touch!
