Google Ride Finder Announced

nthitz writes "Need a ride? Now Google has included the ability to lookup where taxis are in real time! The new service is called Google Ride Finder. Using a combination of Google Maps and Google Local you can see where certain taxis are at the moment. Currently there are only 11 major cities that are supported, and there are still only a few cab companies that are involved. The service is pretty cool, but if they don't add more cities/companies, who knows how well it will do. For more info check out Google's Blog."

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[tjxn]

I can do something close in Portland, Oregon... Accessing the Tri-Met website (www.tri-mer.org/wap) on my cell phone tells me how long until the bus I'm waiting for reaches my stop...

Re:April 1st!!!

[artifex2004]

If it is a joke, it's a pretty good one. It knows that in Dallas, TX, Super Shuttle is a local service, and is in fact the only one it supports, right now.

Also, they've increased my mailbox size. Read this [google.com].

Re:April 1st!!!

[Edgewize]

Actually, March 31st. Check the date on the blog. Not a gag.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[sheppos]

Something like this perhaps.. http://www.nctx.co.uk/Accessibility/Text.htm [nctx.co.uk]

Re:April 1st!!!

[SerialEx13]

April 1st!!!

Of course nothing legit *cough* GMail *cough* was ever announced on April Fools Day.

Re:Google Gmail April Fools: Infinity and Beyond S

[Puchku]

Yup mine's up to 1114 MB. yay for google!

oh, and about that extra space...

[artifex2004]

You have to see how they're doing it. Earlier when I checked, I was up to 1100 something. I just checked again, and it's 1114. It looks like they're doing the reverse of nibbling away, by giving everyone 1 extra MB at a time, and then when they reach the end of the userlist, starting over.

I'm not making this up, if you have a gmail account, go see it. Mod me down if you look and it's a joke.

Oh, up to 1116... I'm never going to get to sleep tonight, I have to keep checking.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[dzarn]

Try nextbus.com [nextbus.com]. It has a lot of cities, WAP access, and is pretty accurate, at least in Boulder, CO. But it would be amazing with a real time map like this... it has one, but it's a java applet that has trouble zooming, etc.

Re:April 1st!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I thought the April's Fool Joke was the Google Gulp [google.com]?

As far as I'm aware, this is actually real.

Not the joke... Google Gulp is! [Re:April 1st!!!]

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the April Fool's joke is actually Google Gulp [google.com]. It's still in beta, and to get it, you need to trade in a used Gulp Cap at a local convenience store. However, it comes in 4 great flavours [google.com]!

Re:Needs ActiveX

[ciroknight]

Does NOT require ActiveX. It does require one of the following:
IE 5.5+ (Windows)
Firefox 0.8+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Netscape 7.1+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Mozilla 1.4+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Probably because the code makes extensive use of the XMLHttpRequest feature (""Ajax" [adaptivepath.com] to some), though that doesn't explain why it doesn't work with Safari outright. Through a quick view source, I can detect they're using XSLT, and that's probably why Safari can't. But none of this matters, as Tiger's coming out very soon and we can expect Safari 2.0 to support a lot that it couldn't before.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[kyoko21]

Actually, a few years ago when I was at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Transit had GPS units mounted on their buses which enabled the realtime display of the location of their buses. This was particularly neat because I could check at anytime from the website of where their buses were and I could run time my run to the bus stop. Unfortunately, they don't have this running on their site anymore... very sad :-/ Talk about 'big brother'.

Re:Google Gmail April Fools: Infinity and Beyond S

[SchnauzerGuy]

The counter started at midnight (EST), April 1st with the value of 1000 megabytes and will run until 6AM (EST), April 2nd, and will end with an value of "over 2000 megabytes of storage".

var START = 1112331600000;
var END = 1112439600000;

function updateQuota() {
if (!quota) {
return;
}

var now = (new Date()).getTime();
if (now < START) {
setTimeout(updateQuota, 1000);
} else if (now > END) {
quota.innerHTML = 'Over 2000';
} else {
quota.innerHTML = format(((now - START)/(END - START)*1025) + 1025);
setTimeout(updateQuota, 50);
}
}

Re:Needs ActiveX

[barrier_reefer]

If you have "Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting" set to "Disabled" the site won't load and you'll be told to use one of the browsers you've listed above. Even if you are using IE 6.

If you have the scripting parameter set to "Prompt", you'll get the standard pop-up:

"A script is accessing some software (an ActiveX control) on this page which has been marked safe for scripting. Do you want to allow this?"

If you OK it, you'll see the map.

Screenshot of April Fools

[JaF893]

Here is a link to a screenshot: http://www.joefarish.co.uk/images/gmail.jpg [joefarish.co.uk]

Best Google Quote Ever

[Hack Jandy]

From http://www.google.com/googlegulp/faq.html [google.com]

11. When will you take Google Gulp out of beta?
Man, if you pressure us, you just drive us away. We'll commit when we're ready, okay? Besides, what's so great about taking things out of beta? It ruins all the romance, the challenge, the possibilities, the right to explore. Carpe diem, ya know? Maybe we're jaded, but we've seen all these other companies leap headlong into 1.0, thinking their product is exactly what they've been dreaming of all their lives, that everything is perfect and hunky-dory - and the next thing you know some vanilla copycat release from Redmond is kicking their butt, the Board is holding emergency meetings and the CEO is on CNBC blathering sweatily about "a new direction" and "getting back to basics." No thanks, man. We like our freedom.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[artifex2004]

Does this just follow the schedule and add a bit to appease you? or does this actually track the busses and calculate in real time based upon the driver's habbits, road conditions, speed, etc. how long it will take to get there?

That's an excellent point. Actually, unless Super Shuttle has changed its operations, the only regular stops here in Dallas, TX, are D/FW airport (I don't think it does Love Field) and several hotels. Anywhere else, you have to call the dispatcher, to send the shuttle by. So seeing who's near you is somewhat useless, for this company. Still, it's beta, and soon they may have some of the taxis on here, also.

You know, some of these companies do already use GPS and radio uplinks to track their vehicles, so they don't have to calculate anything.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[fishmonkey]

in Perth, Western Australia you can view the current locations of the free inner city busses in realtime with the java applet on their page here [wa.gov.au]

London

[t_allardyce]

Don't really need that here but bloody hell I wish someone would get off their ass and hook up London bus locations to the net. They're already fitted with some sort of tracking system so the bus stop can tell you when the next one is coming so its not like it would cost anything but people would really appreciate being able to look it up on the net or on their phone so they didn't have to leave the house before they had to.

Personally I think it would push bus usage right up which is something they mayor keeps going on about, that is in between increasing the prices to the equivalent of a gallon of US gas per fucking bus ticket! and letting the bloody privatised bus company bosses get away with making personal millions. The dick head also has some other bright ideas - invest millions in putting ticket machines on EVERY bus stop in central London because buying a ticket on the bus 'slows everyone down' - of course the roadside ticket machines break down daily and that holds the bus up longer when the driver argues with someone who can't get a ticket and then gets out and tries to fix it.

Just to think the money from those now disused ticket machines (i could have told them it wouldn't work from the start) could have been spent on this, but oooh no, what do they do? they go and by some stupid Mercedes bendy buses which promptly piss off everyone on the road and catch fire! ok that's the end of my London rant, if you ever come here its probably easier just to get a black taxi, they're everywhere, they've memorised every road, they can use the bus lanes and will get you there fast and in comfort, but they're bloody expensive.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[SoCalChris]

Many cities that use the Siemens TransitMaster system have this capability. Here in Long Beach, Ca, we're getting it implemented within the next few months.

http://www.ilgsystems.com/productservice-transit-t iswork.htm [ilgsystems.com]
http://www.ilgsystems.com/productservice-transit-t isbus.htm [ilgsystems.com]

Some of our busier stops, and the main transit hub downtown already have live feeds updated in real time displaying the next bus arrival & departure time. The system is dynamic, and figures in delays due to traffic, detours, or if the bus is running late for any other reasons. It is basically a stripped down version of the software used by our dispatchers.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[mboverload]

None of the taxies actually move on the map. It looks like they are randomly moved.

Maybe a more low-tech solution?

[wirefarm]

Where I live, having GBS on the busses would be redundant and fairly useless.

If I'm at the bus stop, I can look at the sign and printed there it tells me that the bus will arrive at 9:53 am. I check my watch and at precisely 9:53, the bus pulls up. Every time.
When friends are at my house in the evening, they may hop onto the web to see what time the subway is leaving. Not just the last train, but any one before that.

When I lived in the states, in Washington DC, there was no attempt at keeping a schedule at all. I was on the subway one time, in the first car, when the driver stopped for a few minutes in mid tunnel, to chat with another driver who had also stopped. Since I was near the front, I could hear it and it wasn't safety-related or anything justifiable, it was all "Hey, girlfriend, how's your Momma doin'?"

Here in Tokyo, they move about twenty-seven million people around on mass transit every day. (Compare that with NYC's daily 3.1 million.)
I guess to do that you have to be pretty precise about your timetables.

Strangely though, last night there was a one hour delay on my usual train. Somebody had jumped in front of it. That's about the only reason things get slowed down.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[JeremyALogan]

Actually it is fairly acurate (usually to the minute). The bus drivers have a little computer in the front of the bus that they are constantly punching stuff into... it seems to relay the info, via radio (?), back to the 'headquarters'. I've been wondering about this for a while, but it seems to be so acurate that it would have to be real-time info and not just schedules. I guess I could start comparing their estimated arival times (from the web) to the scheduled times to get a real answer.

Re:Yes but, can it find my keys?

[ZaMoose]

It's been done [vunct.com] already.

Original Fark thread here [fark.com]. Link contains naughty words (of course, most of 'em are already in evidence on this page, but oh well).

Re:No practival value

[spamfiltertest]

Note: It says "taxis available". Also, that number is updated. Hence, one can draw the conclusion that the "taxis available" are taxis that are not currently occupied, meaning this is practical value.

Re:Rather than advertising for Taxi services...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The only reason 90% of the cars on the road have no passengers is the inability to organize a more efficient scheme; this would require only centralized planning.

Not so. Traffic-Car Pooling is a Tragedy of the Commons issue. There is no point at which any individual person benefits from car pooling as opposed to driving solo.

Assume the roads are heavily congested. If you and a group of friends car pool, the congestion will be lessened. However, most people would agree that if only a small number do it, the effect is insignificant compared to the effort of organizing and maintaining the pool. For example, if one gagues by reduced travel time, the savings are liable to be exceeded by the time needed to pick up the participants. Further, the efforts of the poolers also benefit the non-poolers (less traffic is less traffic for everyone), and, perhaps unintuitively, the non-poolers benefit more through not paying any of the cost of pooling.

Assume though that a huge number of people (pehaps everyone) car pools such that the savings exceed the costs of pooling. In such a situation, it still benefits the individual to choose not to pool. The slight increase in traffic will be more than offset by eliminating the costs of pooling.

If no one pools, the group is worse off. If everyone pools, the group is better off. At any given moment, if an individual pools, he is worse off. In short, the individual's best choice is always at odds with the best group choice.

This will be so as long as the fundamental costs/benefits remain unchanged. In recognition of this governments implement HOV lanes and other plans. Their hope is to change the fundamental costs and benefits involved so that the individual's best choice matches the group's best choice.

AC

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[bfields]

Does this just follow the schedule and add a bit to appease you? or does this actually track the busses and calculate in real time based upon the driver's habbits, road conditions, speed, etc. how long it will take to get there?

Ann Arbor's busses [theride.org] all have GPS, and you can see displays of the real-time bus-location data in their main bus station. I keep hoping they'll set up some kind of internet access to that data some day. The ability to check bus locations anywhere from a cell phone would be really great.

--Bruce Fields