OpenTripPlanner project
TriMet, The Open Planning Project, and developers of FivePoints, OneBusAway, Graphserver, and byCycle are working on an ambitious open-source multi-modal trip planner (the project name is OpenTripPlanner).
When finished, the multi-modal trip planner software will plan journeys by a combination of biking, walking, and transit in the areas where it has been implemented. For regions that wish to implement the trip planner, they will need to use in-house resources or hire a firm to install, host, and manage the software. Information on transit service, walking routes, and biking routes in the necessary formats will be one of the most important prerequisites for implementing the open-source multi-modal trip planner.
Check out the OpenTripPlanner site or join the developer discussion list to learn more and follow along with the effort.
CityGoRound.org, a new transportation application directory
The folks at Front Seat, who’ve brought us WalkScore, among other great projects, have done it again. Today, Front Seat launched CityGoRound.org
When public transportation information was added to WalkScore, FrontSeat realized they needed more open Google Transit feed data to make the feature useful in more markets. CityGoRound makes it easier for people to find transportation applications for their area (see example of the localized search for Portland). The website also highlights the need for open data to make these applications possible. They recognizes and thank the agencies that provide open data (pulling this information from GTFS Data Exchange).
The project team were several hard-working transit and open data advocates: Brandon Martin-Anderson, Jehiah Czebotar, Dave Peck, Josh Livni, and Joe Hughes, who put this together in a few weeks. The site is open source to facilitate its implementation in international markets.
Transit agencies with open data: Put a link to your localized City-Go-Round page on your agency website. One of our clients is already planning to do this, and we’re planning to reach out to more clients to encourage them to refer their online customers to this useful resource.
You can also read about CityGoRound.com at the Headway Blog. And there’s the Front Seat press release.
Thoughts on “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of organizing without organizations”
By now most people know about Wikipedia, the collaboratively-written encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Isn’t that great and impressive that millions of people who don’t know each other can create such a useful and comprehensive resource? There are many other powerful examples of online collaboration, and sometimes it seems as if there is an equal number of books on the shelves that promise to explain the collaborative production revolution.
Can you tell from my tone that I’ve become cynical about the collection — sometimes it seems like a genre — of books that surround this subject? Well, there’s at least one that I can say is well worth reading — Here Comes Everybody.
Here Comes Everybody is full of examples of internet tools being used for social movements, and collaborative production, including examples that lots of people have heard of (Wikipedia and Linux), and other less-commonly known or discussed examples like political flash mobs in Belarus, citizen journalists in the 2004 southeast Asian tsunami, or the effort to get one woman’s mobile phone back in New York City. Some of the most interesting examples are those which failed, and Shirky discussed what was missing from them — whether it lacked a plausible promise, an acceptable bargain, or just used the wrong technology.
Recently, I returned to some of the ideas and examples in Here Comes Everybody to think about what they may mean for public transit agencies and transit advocates. Read more
Open source and open data make for transit innovation
If you ever have the pleasure of visiting Portland, Oregon, one of the things you will notice make the city great is their transit system called TriMet. One of the best parts of riding TriMet, for me, is how available and easy-to-use their information is.
A few examples: When you arrive at the airport, next arrival information for the MAX train is displayed on the baggage carousel screens. And their trip planner shows beautiful maps to help you plan your journey by transit — and even shows street views of where stops are. And there here are many third part applications that you can use to look up transit data on mobile devices.
Much of this, and more, has happened because of TriMet’s efforts to make their schedule and arrival data available to anyone who can do something useful with it, and because of their embrace of open source software.
In order to learn about some of the online strategies that have contributed to TriMet’s successes, I caught up with Tim McHugh, TriMet’s Chief Technology Officer and Bibiana McHugh, IT Manager of GIS and Location-Based Services. Many thanks to Bibiana & Tim for their time and their inspiring work.
Below is the text of the interview. You can also download the PDF version (with pictures) of the interview as it appeared in More Riders Magazine.
