One small plug for Trillium; a leap for transit and open data
Recently, a new page appeared on Washington DC Metro’s website (WMATA): Developer Resources.
WMATA has joined the growing ranks of transit agencies that choose to provide their schedule, route, and stop data in the Google Transit Feed Spec (GTFS) for anyone (who consents to the license agreement) to download. Hats off to DC Metro.
Trillium asks our small and mid-sized client agencies whether they’d like to make their data public in GTFS, and, if they do, we help them to take that step. So far, every agency we’ve worked with has determined making their schedule data public in the GTFS format can potentially provide more value from their data investment by making it available to a wider developer community for interesting and productive uses.
I was pleased to see that an interview I conducted on open transit data hows and whys with Portland TriMet’s CTO, Tim McHugh, and IT Manager for GIS and Location-based services, Bibiana McHugh, was linked to by the Washington Post blog, as part of the coverage of DC Metro’s choice to provide their data in a standardized format: Upgrading Transit’s Interface.
Feature watch: Colored route markers
This Google Transit user interface tweak showed up back in January. I immediately appreciated it.
If agencies supply specify a color for a route, then the route name will be colorized in the trip planner.
No clutter added, but livens up the interface and draws attention to useful information.
Google Transit feature watch: “Fare Info” link
As with many Google products, Google Transit evolves subtly and incrementally, often in ways that are easy to miss if you don’t look closely.
I am going to start noticing some of the changes on this blog so that users and agencies alike can take advantage of them (or discuss in the comments section).
Here is something new that I noticed recently. Next to the link to each agency, now there is also a “Fare Info” link for many agencies.
Trillium does not include the agency_fare_url field in any agencies’ feeds yet, but I assume that if we do, the “Fare Info” link will go there?
What do your passengers want most? A web-based survey gives answers.
In fall of 2008, SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, surveyed web-visitors in anticipation of their website revamp.
The results are worth noticing. Here’s one question (and averaged responses).
Google Transit and interactive maps came it at the top of the list, along with real time bus information. In other words a lot of SEPTA’s customers, and customers of other agencies, are hoping for Google Transit.
Kudos to SEPTA for conducting the web-based survey. This kind of inexpensive outreach helps to deliver the services customers want, and, importantly builds relationships that will create active public transit advocates.
Metro Magazine: Travel Software to Aid Disabled Riders
I posted on this earlier, but thought I would note the recent Metro Magazine article on a Travel Assistant Device (TAD), a research project conducted at the University of South Florida’s National Center for Transit Research.
This travel assistance system for sight-impaired or cognitively disabled passengers allows them to plan a transit trip and download information to a GPS-enabled mobile phone with the travel assistant software installed. The phone then gives audio and vibrating alerts when it is time for the passenger to pull the stop cord and alight from the bus.
Data for up-to-date schedule and stop information is imported from the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS).
Here’s a summary and final report. There is also a PowerPoint presentation that gives a good overview of the project. One slide, titled “Challenge: Updating Route Information” on why they decided to use GTFS as the source format for data caught my eye. Here were its four bullets:
- Google Transit provides free trip planning tool to agencies
- Agency has incentive to post schedule updates to a webpage so Google can update their system
- TAD system can grab the same updates and use them!
- This feature also allows adding new agencies to TAD with the click of a button!
A similar offering that can be ordered today is one of the Sendero GPS products. These are talking/braille GPS units that can import transit point-of-interest (POI) libraries to help travelers who are sight-impaired find transit stops. The transit POI library is generated from agency GTFS feeds.
It seems like every day now, we see a new benefit of open transit data. Read more
Half a week in San Diego: CalACT review
Last week, I attended and presented at the conference of the California Association for Coordinated Transportation.
CalACT is California’s association of small and mid-sized rural and community transportation providers. Even though these agencies don’t have information technology departments (they’re lucky to have one person dedicated part-time to IT) or the large budgets of metropolitain-scale transportation agencies, CalACT Spring 2009 showed that there is an abundance of need and interest for information technology and innovative marketing to make community transportation more efficient to operate and more appealing and easy-to-use for passengers.
Here were some highlights.
Mobility management
Mobility management has become a bit of a catch-all term for strategies to offer more, and better coordinated and more efficient transportation choices. This can include better coordinating transportation service offerings internally in an agency for greater efficiency, providing integrated traveler information across multiple agencies, and advocating for transportation services (recognizing that it isn’t always most efficient for a transportation agency to directly provide service).
Transportation agencies, state and local governments, and advocates recognize that software and online systems can provide a lot to help coordinate transportation across multiple agencies and make choosing and accessing services easier for end users.
- LIFT/Southwest Wisconsin Transit is a one stop/one call center for connecting with transportation options in an 8 county area of southwest Wisconsin. Phillip Anderson from LIFT described, among other things, their website www.jointhemobilization.com, which notably includes links to several ridematching websites and services. Phillip highlighted his organization’s interest in seeing aggregation for carpool and ride opportunties and coordination among ridematching services (maybe another word for this could be grassroots mobility management?)
- Himanshu Bhatnagar presented on the Calnections and its spin-off projects.
211/511
California is deploying 211 human service information and 511 transportation information telephone services accross the state. Since access to transportation and basic human services goes hand-in-hand, the most successful of these efforts are coordinating 511 and 211 information service efforts.
- Kathryn Heatley of Outreach in San Jose, CA described the software and coordinating effort to integrate hundreds of human service and transportation providers to into one transportation brokering system, and its applications for everyday and emergency situations.
Google Transit
Along with Kimberly Gayle, Chief of Caltrans DMT, Sue Crowe of Shasta County RTPA, and Linda Rhine of Nelson\Nygaard, I presented on Google Transit and a project in Northeastern California to pilot using Google Transit for a collection of rural transit providers. The were many great questions and a very high level of interest in Google Transit and the NE California project.
Here’s our slide deck. The audience particularly liked some of the innovative uses of Google Transit and transit feed data that I included — Google Transit integration for event calendars, Walkscore.com transitshed mashups, and TimeTable Publisher.
(Note, the slide deck includes several movies that don’t play in the emedded Slideshare view.)
“Google LatLong:” Google Transit at TransITech: A year later and 500% greener
Jessica Wei, Strategic Partner Development for the Google Transit team just posted a great summary of her presentation at APTA TransITech to the Google LatLong blog.
It is amazing to witness what happened in only a year. The total number of cities for which users can plan transit trips went to over 250. In North America, the number of participating agencies went from about 20 to over 115! Think of what that means in terms of the number of transit trips planned, of single occupant vehicle miles traveled reduced, of news reports about Google Transit launches that help people understand and appreciate transit as part of a modern 21st-century world. I like to imagine the people who unbox their iPhone to stumble across transit directions and have their idea of public transportation changed as something that’s convenient and easy-to-use.
Of course, I love that she gives a shout out to rural Humboldt County, CA, Trillium’s first client.
Read Jessica’s whole post for a great summary of Google Transit’s progress in 2008.
I’ll be speaking at CalACT: How to use the web to make public transportation easy and popular
I’ll be speaking at the upcoming California Association for Coordinated Transportation conference in San Diego on March 17. As part of the topic of the panel, “Using the web to enhance customer service,” I’ll be discussing the challenges and opportunities for small and mid-sized agencies looking to participate in Google Transit, launch or update their websites, or make their information available to online and mobile customers.
To register for the conference or check out the preliminary agenda, check out the CalACT conference page. If you’re planning to be there, drop a line!
I’m looking forward to everyone’s questions and listening to what the other panelists have to say:
- Karen Burkhardt, Mobilitat Software
- Kimberly Gayle, Office Chief, Caltrans Division of Mass Transportation
- Linda Rhine, Nelson\Nygaard
- Sue Crowe, Shasta County RTPA
(Speaking at Fall CalACT/CTA conference on “Leveraging new media” in November 2008) Read more
