How Google Is Remapping Public Transportation 187
waderoush writes "Google wants to 'organize the world's information,' but there isn't a marketplace or a category of knowledge it can organize without remaking it in the process. A case in point: public transportation. Largely outside the media spotlight, Google has wrought a quiet revolution over the last five years in the way commuters get schedule information for local buses and trains, and the way public transit agencies communicate with their riders. GTFS and GTFS-realtime, which Google invented, have become the de facto world standards for sharing transit data, and have opened up space for a whole ecosystem of third-party transit app developers. This in-depth article looks at the history of GTFS and Google's efforts to give people information (largely via their smartphones) that can help them plan their commutes on public transportation — and, not incidentally, drive a lot less."
Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Interesting)
After missing three or four timed-transfer connections, I've given up on Google Maps for transit.
I'm sure it works sometimes, but since they've made it impossible to check their work (they don't give you access to the schedule data) it's a hell of a lot easier just to check the schedule myself.
That said it does work okay for short bus trips, but I've already got an app on my phone that tells me when the bus is arriving base on real-time data. No need to bring Google Maps into the picture.
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Well, if it's a tight connection you have to check it... which you can do.
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Google maps has been better than any local transit maps I've used - not that I've used all that many. (San Luis Obispo, CA)
I'm curious whereabouts you are that your local info is easier to get online.
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You do realize that the local transit map and the Google feed are the same thing right? As someone who has actually worked on this particular feed, they're both pulled from the same source. It's not like Google has anything to do with the actual feed data... they should rightly get credit for the feed specification and the medium in which it is relayed to the people. But it's the agencies that create the feeds that get uploaded to Google for use.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Insightful)
If Google Maps used realtime data, that would be amazing. They're at the point where they can aggregate multiple data sources to plan your trip. For example, traveling cross town in Los Angeles could theoretically mean:
Starting on LADOT downtown-only bus circuit (DASH)
Transferring to LADOT regular bus
Transferring to Culver CIty bus
Transferring to Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, or back to the LADOT bus.
That's 4 different bus systems just to get from downtown to the beach, and doesn't take into account the light rail/subway system, commuter heavy rail (2 different systems) or Amtrak. Each municipality and transit provider publishes schedules and routes independently. They all have independently run trip-planning tools and mobile apps. Google really is at the best point in the mix to offer a truly integrated solution that spans providers, making public transportation a NETWORK instead of scattering of independent systems.
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Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Informative)
With gas prices the way they are, I'm not sure I'd buy the "cheaper" argument.
Figure that gas here in LA is $4.11. Assuming you're heading to Santa Monica beach, that's about 17 miles. So figure you'll use half to three-quarters of a gallon of gasoline to get there. Assuming you're planning on returning, you'll use 1 to 1.5 gallons of gasoline. So figure you'll spend anywhere from $4.11 to $6.17 to get to the beach. This doesn't include parking, etc.
Now I can take the "Rapid 10" Blue Bus from downtown to Santa Monica for, I'm guessing, $2.00 each way (I thought Google gave fare info, but I guess not). So figure that's $4.00 round-trip. So unless your car gets better than 34 MPG, you're spending less money taking the bus than driving a car.
As for "convenience," well, that's up to individual taste. I'd submit that driving to the beach is much more convenient for the beginning of the trip (just hop in and go versus waiting around for the bus to show up) but far less convenient at the end of trip (try to find parking versus stepping off the bus at the beach). So it sort of depends on when you want your hassle--beginning or end.
More than a 24 hour wait (Score:3)
I'd submit that driving to the beach is much more convenient for the beginning of the trip (just hop in and go versus waiting around for the bus to show up)
Especially when it'd be more than a 24 hour wait because a particular city doesn't run buses at all on a given day.
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As an aside, it always depresses me to see American's complain about petrol prices. I don't remember the last time petrol here was less than £5 a gallon; I think these days it's more like £6 (about $10)...
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It's my understanding that your gasoline prices are so high because of taxes. I'd take high gasoline prices in a heartbeat if it meant I didn't have to buy health insurance. Too bad my fellow Americans all seem to disagree.
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Regardless of one's position on universal healthcare (FYI I'm all for it) fuel taxes shouldn't have anything to do with healthcare funding. That money should go entirely in to road construction, maintenance, and improvement. We do need more of that too though, and in a time where increasing fuel economy tightens the budget on our already severely underfunded road system it pisses me off whenever fuel taxes are reduced with the goal of reducing gas costs.
But as always in this country, short term gains >
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This page is quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_pricing [wikipedia.org] but see the German report: http://www.gtz.de/en/themen/29957.htm [www.gtz.de]
Last time I read it (and there's a new version since then) it claimed that the amount of tax on American fuel was just about sufficient for maintaining the national road network. Yes, it's on the map of America: "The fuel prices of the United States are average cost-covering retail prices incl. industry margin, VAT and incl. approx. US 10 cents f
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I'd take high gasoline prices in a heartbeat now. I buy it about 4 times a year because I've chosen to live somewhere with decent transportation, and proper taxation of gasoline could turn Amtrak into more than a curiosity and into a real rail carrier.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:4, Insightful)
The calculations holds true so long as you are going to the beach by yourself, but take 1 extra person with you the public transport costs double but the car costs will remain essentially the same.
Based on that between 1 and 2 extra people would make the car cheaper and fill a car with 4 people and the car will always come out cheaper.... which I think is a great shame, I always said that if they want to encourage public transport they need to find a way to make it cheap for groups.
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Based on that between 1 and 2 extra people would make the car cheaper and fill a car with 4 people and the car will always come out cheaper.... which I think is a great shame, I always said that if they want to encourage public transport they need to find a way to make it cheap for groups.
Perhaps, but either way you've reduced the number of single-occupant vehicles on the road.
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I always said that if they want to encourage public transport they need to find a way to make it cheap for groups.
They just raised bus prices here in Springfield to $1.25. That's $2.50 round trip. At 20 mpg it doesn't matter if I'm by myself or in a group, driving anywhere in town is a hell of a lot cheaper than the bus, and a ten minute drive is an hour long bus ride.
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That is not the total cost of driving.
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So for between $0.11 and $2.17 I can have a custom ride go directly to my destination faster more conveniently and more comfortably, and I can bring all my friends for free.
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That is also nowhere near the total cost of a trip by car (which is admittedly difficult to calculate).
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Its is not evident from the link. What makes you think they use real time data?
Or was the point of your post was that Google aggregates data from multiple agencies, which was exactly the same as GP's point - "They're at the point where they can aggregate multiple data sources to plan your trip."
And pulic transport will never replace the car (Score:3)
Too bad the route takes 3.5 hours instead of 49 minutes driving
The problem... well stated. The fundamental maths of current public transport technologies mean that they can physically never replace the car in terms of performance. You could spend trillions on it and it would still suck so badly that nobody uses it. (This is what Europe does)
There are technologies out there where the maths do add up (PRT) and which can outperform cars, but they would replace existing public transport systems which have lobbyists, unions, huge subsidies, decades of waste ec. Egos would b
Re:And pulic transport will never replace the car (Score:4, Funny)
The problem... well stated. The fundamental maths of current public transport technologies mean that they can physically never replace the car in terms of performance. You could spend trillions on it and it would still suck so badly that nobody uses it. (This is what Europe does)
Come take the subway in Paris and you will find it so packed you will wish nobody used it. Take a car instead and an hour and a handful of miles later you will wish you had taken the subway instead.
So no. There are public transportation systems that are both widely used and competitive with cars.
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Says someone it doesn't sound like has ever been to Europe... or NYC for that matter.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Insightful)
After missing three or four timed-transfer connections, I've given up on Google Maps for transit.
In Perth, Australia Google Maps is more reliable then Transperths own website, not to mention the fact that Google Maps works on my phone. If you want schedule data, just select the bus stop or train station you want that data on.
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Google Transit is great plus Transperth publish their GTFS feed data.
Only downside is that you cant use Google Transit on a Nokia N900 Linux phone (I keep meaning to write an app for it but I never got around to it and couldn't be bothered figuring out how to parse the GTFS feed properly)
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Interesting)
In South Australia the transit services all use Google now, and it's really accurate. I'm at uni, so I'm using it all the time, and I've never had a problem. I have friends who have done more serious bus based travel, with multiple transfers, and they've had no problem. It's made their route planning a lot easier, and they can now minimize their wait times.
I've had nothing but good experiences with the whole system.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Interesting)
I must second that - I rely heavily on Google Maps in Perth, and in fact it's helped me avoid needing a car for the last five years. I only recently got one to make it easier to get out of the city, go windsurfing, and get around on sundays.
The only issue I've ever had with Google Maps transit in WA has been the odd special-occasion public holiday or special event where Transperth appears to have failed to inform Google of the schedule changes. That can be annoying. On the other hand, Google Maps had perfect data about all the New Years' Eve special and adjusted services, so they're clearly getting it pushed most of the time.
I cannot possibly praise Transperth and Google enough for Google Maps Transit. It's fantastic, and it's a real shame that so few people seem to know about and use it. It was a real lifesaver when I last visited Auckland, too, as I could just use Maps instead of having to fart about with a different city's transit systems and timetables. Fantastic!
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A few years ago Google Maps had integrated wonderful public transport information for Vienna, Austria. And then it suddenly vanished, and so now on Google Maps when you click on an underground station, you are just shown a link to wienerlinien.at and the comment "Note: Public transit coverage may not be available in this area.", rather than station info.
I think that it would be because the public transit authority (not sure if public, private or any combination of the above in Vienna) has probably revoked Googles access to the data. I know Transperth in Oz has made the data that Google uses available in XML form.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be better if every agency made their GTFS feed public, that's for sure. I never figured out why more don't do that, since it really doesn't require any additional work on the part of the outfit to post the zip file on their website somewhere.
I would encourage anyone who lives in a city who is on Google Transit but doesn't put the GTFS feed on their website to call, send email, come to transit board meetings, etc and encourage them to post the data publicly . If you live in a city where the data is already posted, create works that extend the data (or help others do so) to help make the format more useful for everyone. Even if Google stops supporting Transit in the future, the GTFS data is still invaluable for anyone who creates software that helps other transit riders get around easier.
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Zip file?
Give me an easily crawled listing of individual files, an rsync-able directory, or an RSS feed. Something where I don't have to constantly re-download data that *hasn't* changed along with changes.
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That's not how GTFS works. Basically it's 8 CSV files in a zip file. Agency, Calendar, Calendar Dates, Routes, Shapes, Stop Times, Stops, and Trips. A very ugly, hard to parse format.
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What are shapes?
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm quite familiar with NYC and primarily use the subway to get around (though I'm not a local, I go there frequently and have many friends there, I'm originally from Buffalo) and the thing that always trips me up is when I need a specific letter train (not just anything on a certain color line). It's not always guaranteed to show up at all on a given day, and the signage at the stations will tell you but are usually quite ambiguous - enough so that someone not familiar with the schedule would not be able t
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Sounds like you would benefit from the Weekender: http://www.mta.info/weekender.html [mta.info]
Doesn't help full time, but there are seldom major reroutes except late nights or weekends.
One really needs to read the paper signs in the stations. They're almost always there now and they are easier to understand than they used to be.
Re:Would be great... if it worked (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I live, the local bus company's web site [kolumbus.no] is terrible. It's difficult to use, forces you to fill in forms over and over again when you make changes, can't figure out where you are or where you want to go half the time and frequently has issues figuring out transfers at all. Worst of all, the bus company never seems to have current route information posted at the bus stops.
Since Google started supporting transit directions in Stavanger, Norway [g.co], my life has been so much easier. I especially love the Android (Gingerbread) integration. I have shortcuts on my home screen that will show me the best route and next three busses from wherever I am to my home, work and down town. It's amazing.
If you regularly use public transit, it's worth your time to see if Google supports your city.
Now the only thing missing is real time route information. I can't wait until that feature comes to town. Sadly the bus drivers are rarely on time and make a sport of speeding away when they're early and you're sprinting for the bus.
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Clearly you don't live in Calgary. Google Maps Transit was a godsend... forget schedule information, you needed it just to figure out an efficient ROUTE thru Calgary's masochistic spaghetti-maze of local bus loops.
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Living in a city that lives and falls with it's public transport system (Hong Kong - the public transport sytem here is considered one of the best in the world, if not simply the best), I had never heard of this whole Google attempt. I just tried it and it seems to work, the route that I tried I got several known-good connections.
Before I have seen bus stops appear, and bus routes. But this just doesn't work well: you can click a bus stop, see which routes call there, and see the routes on the map. A typic
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For Tri-met in Portland I find that lists the approximate time of arrival - the bus still might be slightly early or slightly late and its still best to show up a bit before if you can.
I'm kinda glad they run at all :).
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If more people would ride it and quit fucking up traffic with their shitty driving, maybe it would.
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I have two basic problems with it.
Firstly, it simply doesn't have all the public transport companies' data. Looking at my home town, it lacks the local (government owned, almost monopoly) bus company, and instead suggests you just walk everywhere (hours and hours of walking for some routes I've just tried). I know this is daft because I know my local transport routes; it'd be downright an issue when travelling somewhere unknown, where you don't know what you're missing.
Secondly, compared with the main railw
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The British government has funded http://www.transportdirect.info/ [transportdirect.info] , which should have everything. It's very rare that I need to plan journeys outside London or a couple of other cities, so I've only used it a couple of times. I don't know if it really is complete.
(Also, I find http://traintimes.org.uk/ [traintimes.org.uk] much nicer than the real National Rail site. URLs like http://traintimes.org.uk/WAT/Putney [traintimes.org.uk] work (with the code or the full name), and you can add times, dates, etc.)
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Excellent tip, particularly on that first one. Very many thanks indeed.
(Which underlines Google Transit's lack of suitability- it performs considerably worse than transportdirect.info on a few test routes I've just tried. If they can't out-perform what's already available, they're not ready for me to use them)
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But that's not the way it works: the transit provider supplies the data. Google is there to receive it. If you want your local authority to have it, request it (and/or offer to help them do it).
I do agree with you that there are issues with the trip costs. In the US, the analogy is Amtrak. It will suggest it a lot of times because it is faster (even if only by 20 mins on a 60 minute journey) but it costs at least 3 times as much -- sometimes 6 times as much as public transit. There should be some sort of di
Google Transit is Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a dispatcher with a small transit agency out in the Midwest on Google Transit, and I have to say its been great for us and our riders. New passengers are typically unfamiliar with locations around towns or unfamiliar with the local bus schedule, and giving them a trip planner that is already built into a familiar interface on Google sure makes life easier on them. The GTFS feed itself is also useful for external developers of programs that provide extra service to passengers, like Android or iPhone applications, or even members of the public that just want a well-documented view of exactly how the buses in a town operate. The fact that all of this is free is just icing on the cake.
A shout out to Bob Heitzman for his wonderful Excel-based tools (https://sites.google.com/site/rheitzman/) that enabled our system and others to get on to Google in the first place. Anyone out there who works for a small public transit system should check those out if you're wondering about supporting a GTFS feed. They aren't fancy, but they work well for outfits that don't have the manpower to run a full set of scheduling software.
36 to 60 hour layovers (Score:2)
New passengers are typically unfamiliar with locations around towns or unfamiliar with the local bus schedule
How should new passengers deal with the 36 to 60 hour layovers that are common in places like Fort Wayne, Indiana? There are no buses from roughly 6 PM Saturday evening to 6 AM Monday morning, or 6 AM Tuesday morning if Sunday or Monday is a major holiday.
GTFS? (Score:4, Insightful)
GTFS? Get The Fucking Subway?
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Ahh yes that fits a lot better.
The Standard? (Score:2)
hmm.. the standard, i would of assumed that TCIP was the standard that google is not adhering to. GTFS is interesting and good in it's own way, but it's devoid of information that's useful to transit systems, such as Run information and timepoints. Without that information it will only be a subset of the information needed.
Buses US only? (Score:4, Interesting)
Somebody please tell this to the Japanese. While their bus service is decent enough, getting information about routes and timetables here is virtually impossible. All the Japanese bus company websites are still Web 0.8, there are many many private bus companies even within the same city and there's no one service that aggregates all the information.
Google Bus would be a great service here. They have already done it for trains, which works really well.
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The problem is that their schedule is printed in all these weird squiggly characters. No wonder nobody can read it !
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If only it was this easy. Nope, even Yahoo does not provide bus route information. High speed buses, sure, but normal buses no.
At least it does not find my local bus connection and has me walking 15mins to the closest train station instead.
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The reason their sites look basic is so that you can read them on mobile phones. Of course now everyone has smart phones they could be more complex, but they have been using them since before 2000.
The best option for smartphones is to get an app. The official ones are pretty good and will do something similar to what Google does, i.e. plan a route from A to B using multiple different types of transport and walking if necessary.
But yes, it would be nice if they integrated with Google. The data is available t
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I don't know, this don't look like a mobile-optimized site: http://kokusaikogyo.ekiworld.net/kensaku/web/ [ekiworld.net]
And again, I have yet to find one app that has all the bus information. Navitime doesn't even recognize the name of my nearest bus stop, which is served by two different companies, 30mins walking distance from Shinjuku. There's hardly any excuse for not having that data.
The reality is, bus information is simply not well aggregated or accessible in Japan.
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I don't know, this don't look like a mobile-optimized site: http://kokusaikogyo.ekiworld.net/kensaku/web/ [ekiworld.net]
Sure it is, that's why the page is only 800 pixels wide.
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The reason their sites look basic is so that you can read them on mobile phones.
All web sites should be written like this!
Of course now everyone has smart phones they could be more complex
But everyone DOESN'T have a smart phone. I don't; I have a "feature phone" that won't display your "complex" pages (funny it does work with slashdot though)
Now tell me, what would be the benefit of making them more complex? THIS IS A BUG, NOT A FEATURE. Case in point: I gave up trying to file my taxes online after an hour
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Routes available on Hyperdia (copy&paste):
Airplane
Airport Shuttle Bus
Bullet Train (SHINKANSEN)
NOZOMI / MIZUHO / HAYABUSA (SHINKANSEN)
Limited Express
Express
Liner
Walk
Sleeper Limited Express
Sleeper Express
Ordinary Train
Japan Railway(JR)
Private Railway
Thanks for underscoring my point about buses .
Google Transit can do the above as well just fine.
Multi-Modal Trip Planning (Score:5, Interesting)
Google Transit is not news to those of us who work in transportation. I work in Sustainable Transportation/Transportation Demand Management and my job is to get people to do (practically) anything but drive a car alone. Since I also work at a University, it's also my job to convince students not to bring cars to school (at least for the first few years) and it would be SO MUCH EASIER if I could convince Google to jump into multi-modal trip planning. Why?
Well, let's assume you're at my University and want to get somewhere 85 miles south without a car. You might be able to bus to the local train station, catch a southbound train, and then catch another bus to your final destination. However, the bus service here is contracting (sharply) due to budget constraints so a bus connection to a train will not always be an option.
I often suggest biking to the train, riding the train, and then biking to the final destination, but since Google Maps treats transit (bus/train) and biking separately, my suggestion can only go so far. It requires some rather involved planning for a novice to get from our campus to the train station by bike.
There are other options like OpenTripPlanner which, when coupled with a well-mapped OpenStreetMaps, can be an incredible way to plan multi-modal trips in addition to mapping out literally everything in an area from streets to bike lanes to sidewalks, stairs, and handicap accessible ramps... but it takes A LOT of work to perfect a local map and then to host an OpenTripPlanner server. It's relatively easy, but it's man-hour intense.
So, come on Google, pretty please.
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Yes, this! Car+train, bike+train, etc are key ways to make public transport more usable and time efficient, but Maps doesn't understand them.
Maps needs to not only understand mixed journeys, but which services you can take bikes on. In Perth, Western Australia, for example you can bring a bike on the train (but not bus), except between 7am-9am and 4:30pm-6:30pm weekdays. There are also secure keycard-controlled bike lockups at stations if you want to just ride to the station. If you make use of those facili
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So?
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What is the point of this long rambling nonsense exactly?
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What is the point of this long rambling nonsense exactly?
Apparently some people are proud of their stupidity.
It's becoming an alarming trend: see recent AAAS conference, for example.
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Stupidity is living in a big city having to spend 1/8 of a day going to and from work. I spend a grand total of 14 minutes a day commuting
GTFS Realtime != Realtime (Score:2)
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From the article: "To enable all that, Google introduced a new standard in 2011 called GTFS-realtime. It builds on GTFS, but is a different animal, since it includes new feed types for trip updates, service alerts, and vehicle positions, as well as provisions for constantly refreshing this data throughout the day."
So the article does state that it's also for vehicle positions. I haven't checked if the article is right or not though.
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That's nice... (Score:3)
I didn't know it could do this. That's because after waiting seven YEARS for my street to show up on Google Maps correctly, I've long since given up using their sodding software.
Every other mapping app has had my street listed for ages. Google Maps is the only one that still can't find my address.
Not my experience (Score:3)
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I reported an error a few months back. I got a lovely response back saying "thanks, we'll let you know when we've fixed it", and never heard anything since. I'm assuming it's waiting for a release or some such, but it seems like the fix has been a long time coming for what it is.
Quite amusing error, really. The town of Swindon (a long suffering butt of many jokes) no longer appears on the map. I mean it's there, but not labelled at most zoom levels. All the piddling neighbouring villages are labelled, but t
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Google replied to me after reporting it a month back.
"Thank you for reporting this problem. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the problem you reported isn't easy for us to fix at this time:
[my report about the 81st largest town in England being missing]
We did want to let you know blah, blah, blah, blah.
Thanks for helping us to improve Google Maps!"
OK, it's a hard problem. A hard problem of increasing the font size? A hard p
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Bizarrely, was a problem when I posted this message this morning (I checked), but is actually fixed now, this very evening. Apparently dozens of bug reports and an article in the local paper does nothing, while a small and little-read comment on Slashdot gets instant attention!
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This is a pretty frequent problem. They seem to play with the labeling algorithms occasionally, screwing things up.
I think there's a sound intent behind it, though - if you're zoomed in to where a major city is, presumably you know which major city it is and don't need that label cluttering things up, but you might want the labels for the surrounding small towns and villages.
In practice, you get problems like the one you describe for Swindon. It's frustrating to be browsing around the map in an area you're
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Three? Ah, so tourism to Swindon is up this year.
Google Transit + Android = Heaven (Score:2)
NextBus is real-time, and better (Score:4, Interesting)
NextBus [nextbus.com] has been providing real-time bus data for years, and doing it better than Google. NextBus did all the hard work to make this work - they developed the position-reporting boxes that go on buses over a decade ago, got transit systems to adopt their technology, and developed a prediction system that figures out when the next bus will show up, based on live data and history. They even put signs in bus shelters that tell when the next bus will arrive.
There was substantial opposition in the transit industry at first. Some transit agencies didn't want accurate data on their operation publicly available. Some of them still don't. But the ones that do find it useful. The transit agency gets all the bus data and can evaluate how their operation is working.
Then some clown writes an article as if Google invented the technology. This is more like the old MIcrosoft tactic of "embrace, extend, devour".
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NextBus has been providing real-time bus data for years, and doing it better than Google. NextBus did all the hard work to make this work - they developed the position-reporting boxes that go on buses over a decade ago, got transit systems to adopt their technology, and developed a prediction system that figures out when the next bus will show up, based on live data and history. They even put signs in bus shelters that tell when the next bus will arrive.
NextBus and Google Transit are different, and orthogonal.
Google Transit tells you how to use to the transit system to get where you're going, based on published schedules.
NextBus assumes you know how to get where you're going, but tells you when the bus is actually going to arrive.
The services clearly have great potential synergy. If Google Transit could plan near-future routes based on actual bus position, and traffic forecasting, it could be much more useful.
As others have said, though, I think t
So glad they came up with GTFS (Score:2)
I have been writing a blog advocating changing the transportation system. The blog gets zero comments and it has been a very lonely writing experience. And every day I dwell on the irony that I am stuck driving an energy wasting car 12,000 miles per year and I am trying to develop the ideas for a low energy low CO2 reorganization.
So I see the General Transportation File System as a brilliant data structure that makes an expanded world of transportation solutions. The late bus update schemes are interesting
Korea's is better.. (Score:2)
Looking at the example image, I see a next bus, I see some "scheduled" times and that's it.
If I look at a stop in Korea, I see live times of all the buses, I can click an individual route to see when the next 2 buses are (which tells me their current stop, how many stops away they are and the expected arrival time), I can further click to see an entire route list of all stops and see the general position of every single bus on the route as well as which ones are low floor buses.
This was basically all put to
The point nobody touches on (Score:2)
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“The biggest thing holding us back in the U.S. is land use patterns,” says Brian Ferris, a Google Transit engineer based in Zurich, Switzerland. “European cities are more compact, so public transportation dollars go a lot farther. In the U.S., huge parts of our cities were built after the automobile came to prominence. But we can’t change American cities tomorrow.
California doesn't want to change in order to be like Switzerland. What makes him think that we would? We don't see Southern California as a problem that needs to be fixed. We see it as an improvement over compacted cities.
You must not be driving the freeways here.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
California doesn't want to change in order to be like Switzerland. What makes him think that we would? We don't see Southern California as a problem that needs to be fixed. We see it as an improvement over compacted cities.
The issue is that the United States was founded on the principal of expanding outward and populating as much territory as possible. This philosophy has proven to result in some huge drawbacks with outward expansion still financially incentivized as opposed to a focus on maintaining and supporting infrastructure. This has caused an extreme disparity in land use per person in relation to most european cities. As a result we see begin to see the core of many cities become dilapidated and unmaintained as well a
Re:We don't WANT to be like you... (Score:4, Informative)
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Sprawl is not an improvement. It contributes to obesity, poverty, lost productivity, the disenfranchisement of the young and elderly, the high cost of health care, a less vibrant economy, accidents and deaths, drug and alcohol violence, and higher stress.
You don't have to be like Zurich, but it's a good idea for you not to be like SoCal/the rest of the sprawling American cities that are bringing the country down.
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Oh, yeah, California is awesome, man: an hour to go five miles stuck in traffic. What an asinine assertion, even leaving the environment out of it. Really great design.
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Speak for yourself. Me and most of the people I know love a lot of things about living in Southern California, but the number one complaint is always transportation, I would love to have an option other then having to drive everywhere. Have you even been in a city with a real transit system? The benefits are obvious to anyone.
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Yes, but this is a stupid comment.
What does the iPhone use for maps? Google Maps. That means the vast majority of iPhone users if they're doing transit directions are using it. That's almost certainly true of Android phones. It was once true of Palm/HP phones, and it is probably still true of Blackberry's. That's just mobile. Who else has any good data on this that includes multiple transit systems in one query? Bing has some of it but it generally sucks.
The result I've seen from this is that now normal peo
Re:i call (Score:5, Insightful)
I've tried Google's public transport option a few times, but it's given bad plans. I don't know if they don't have good enough data, or if their algorithms aren't tuned to working in a city with so many frequent services as London, but the official route planner [tfl.gov.uk] is much better -- and covers everything in London, which is enough for most people in London. Google's is very keen to switch from the Underground to buses -- it forgets that it takes much longer to get from the deep-underground platforms of the London Underground, crammed with people, out onto the street (which exit?), to the bus stop (which side of the road? which stop?) than to walk to a different platform for a different line. It's also optimistic with journey times during rush hour -- buses are often slowed by traffic/people, trains aren't much affected.
Also, when service frequency varies, it's most useful to know "take bus 23, buses are every 10 minutes" than "take bus 23 at 08:23". I've been approached by tourists concerned that there was no London Underground train at 20:42. Well, no, but there was one at 20:40, and another at 20:43.
Many European cities, and many elsewhere, have a single website with a routeplanner for that city. I expect many, many people still use these websites rather than Google.
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That is quite possible. In my area, there was no single planner. NJTransit had tiny pieces of the NYC subway system and the PATH but that was about as far as it went.
I believe the spec does allow for adding frequency into the data (I see "train runs every 0 minutes" a lot) but I think that agencies are not using it.
Agreed one place Google doesn't do as well is major transport centers where it's a variable amount of time to get in and out the door. In New York Penn Station, Google always gives a ridiculous a
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Only for iPhone though, yah?
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Too bad you live somewhere where there is no public transit you mean. First, you are oversimplifying as there are plenty of places that don't fit your in to work out to home model. Regardless though (and we can't really have a conversation about it unless you say where you are), there are areas that are built so poorly that transit cannot support them because no one would ride and routes couldn't possibly anticipate where people are going. How is that public transit's fault? That is the fault of city planne
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Too bad you live somewhere where there is no public transit you mean.
That or too bad his situation isn't such that he can just up and move his whole family.
That is the fault of city planners and people who choose to live in those places.
Not everybody has the luxury of being free to choose where to live.
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So you're saying he never chose where to live? C'mon.
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So you're saying he never chose where to live?
Yes. Sometimes that's chosen for one by one's circumstances. For example, I feel reluctant to move because I have no support network of friends and family outside my home town, even for a ride home should I end up stranded after public transit has stopped running for the day or for the week.
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Choosing where to live does not have to mean choosing what country or state to live in. Most people I know do not look AT ALL at public transportation before they move, even in the same area... and then sometime down the road say they don't use public transportation because it doesn't go where they live. I could live somewhere within 20 mins of here that is not well served by transit... but I didn't.
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After trying to use Google Maps and/or the Phoenix Metro time schedule when I took my son on the Phoenix Metro Light Rail (which he absolutely loves riding), I gave up and just scraped the data and wrote my own application (iOS app [apple.com] and Android app [android.com]). The biggest issue I had was that the schedule data is badly done. They only have the times for half the stations (14 out of 28), so I had to interpolate for the remaining stations and call it good enough
Damn it. I forgot to log in before replying.