Comments on: What’s your transit score? http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/11/19/whats-your-transit-score/ More riders and less hassle. Fri, 21 May 2010 16:17:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: CityGoRound.org, a new transportation application directory : Trillium Solutions blog http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/11/19/whats-your-transit-score/comment-page-1/#comment-5906 CityGoRound.org, a new transportation application directory : Trillium Solutions blog Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:32:30 +0000 http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/?p=435#comment-5906 [...] public transportation information was added to WalkScore, FrontSeat realized they needed more open Google Transit feed data to make the feature useful in [...] [...] public transportation information was added to WalkScore, FrontSeat realized they needed more open Google Transit feed data to make the feature useful in [...]

]]> By: Aaron Antrim http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/11/19/whats-your-transit-score/comment-page-1/#comment-5852 Aaron Antrim Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:32:05 +0000 http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/?p=435#comment-5852 Jarrett: Good point. I think mis-represented the current proposals somewhat. The current proposals include one option that would count the number of stops nearby, but that's pretty much for discussion purposes only. More sophisticated proposals are to determine transit score by the value of the services accessible from the location, and how convenient it is to access these services. But with the way they are presented, it seems some of the issues you bring up have yet to be fully considered / dealt with. So, inspired by your comment, I posted a short message to the Transit Developers group (scroll to bottom to see my contribution to the thread): http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers/browse_thread/thread/626d82cff50c3b41 You may want to chime in there to discuss further. Transit Developers (http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers/) is where a lot of interesting new work makes its debut, so if you're interested in this stuff, that's a good way to get a front row seat. -Aaron Jarrett:

Good point. I think mis-represented the current proposals somewhat. The current proposals include one option that would count the number of stops nearby, but that’s pretty much for discussion purposes only. More sophisticated proposals are to determine transit score by the value of the services accessible from the location, and how convenient it is to access these services. But with the way they are presented, it seems some of the issues you bring up have yet to be fully considered / dealt with.

So, inspired by your comment, I posted a short message to the Transit Developers group (scroll to bottom to see my contribution to the thread):
http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers/browse_thread/thread/626d82cff50c3b41

You may want to chime in there to discuss further.

Transit Developers (http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers/) is where a lot of interesting new work makes its debut, so if you’re interested in this stuff, that’s a good way to get a front row seat.

-Aaron

]]> By: Jarrett at HumanTransit.org http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/11/19/whats-your-transit-score/comment-page-1/#comment-5847 Jarrett at HumanTransit.org Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:46:43 +0000 http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/?p=435#comment-5847 Aaron. I'm not enough of a geek to figure out how to respond to the Walkscore wiki page you link to, but there's a very very big problem with any scoring that gives weight to the "number of stops" in the vicinity. The fact that you can walk to multiple stops on the same line has absolutely zero value to your transit mobility. You only need one stop. That's why transit planners are often trying to take stops out and/or implement policies that create consistent and generally wider spacing. In my view, the transit-shed calculations/maps that Walkscore already does constitute the best basis for a transit score, because as I understand it, they already integrate service speed, frequency, and number and extent of lines in the best possible way: by measuring the combined output of these things rather than obsessing about how to weight them individually. The transit-shed maps ("where can I go in 45 minutes?") could easily be converted into a single score by overlaying them on demographic databases that would show the percentage of the urban areas population and/or jobs that are in that blob. That's the only way I can think of to make a single "transit score." It wouldn't be comparable between cities, but if the purpose is to help people make good location judgments within cities, it doesn't have to be. Please pass this on to them, or advise me on how to. Thanks, Jarrettt Aaron. I’m not enough of a geek to figure out how to respond to the Walkscore wiki page you link to, but there’s a very very big problem with any scoring that gives weight to the “number of stops” in the vicinity. The fact that you can walk to multiple stops on the same line has absolutely zero value to your transit mobility. You only need one stop. That’s why transit planners are often trying to take stops out and/or implement policies that create consistent and generally wider spacing.

In my view, the transit-shed calculations/maps that Walkscore already does constitute the best basis for a transit score, because as I understand it, they already integrate service speed, frequency, and number and extent of lines in the best possible way: by measuring the combined output of these things rather than obsessing about how to weight them individually.

The transit-shed maps (“where can I go in 45 minutes?”) could easily be converted into a single score by overlaying them on demographic databases that would show the percentage of the urban areas population and/or jobs that are in that blob. That’s the only way I can think of to make a single “transit score.” It wouldn’t be comparable between cities, but if the purpose is to help people make good location judgments within cities, it doesn’t have to be.

Please pass this on to them, or advise me on how to.

Thanks, Jarrettt

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