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That's a question that Xandon Armentrout has asked himself many times while waiting at a COTA stop. Not knowing how long the wait will be can be frustrating - especially when the bus is late or you're not sure if you've already missed it."I once waited at Riverside Hospital for two hours for the No. 83," said the 24-year-old Columbus resident. "If they could get real-time info to the stops, it would be so helpful."
COTA will inch closer to that goal once an $8.1 million bus-tracking upgrade is running in early 2011. The Central Ohio Transit Authority could then hire a third-party service to provide real-time bus-tracking information via text messaging.
Each of COTA's 4,000 or so bus-stop signs would be numbered.
"If you know your bus-stop number, you'd call, punch in the number, and it will give you in real time, 'The next bus is in 5 minutes,'" COTA President Bill Lhota said.
If more than one route serves that stop, it would give the wait times for each.
Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion » Transit
COTA Considering Real Time Text Messaging Service
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lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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Posted 2 years ago # -
nexttuesday
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I think every other big city I've ever taken a bus in has this service. I guess it takes a certain number of people riding the bus to make it worthwhile.
I was going to say, even Portland has this, but then I looked up the population of Portland. For some reason I didn't know that many people lived there.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The Wayfarer
Short North
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Google Maps on the iPhone lists all of the expected arrival times. I rely on it pretty heavily and have had no problems.
Posted 2 years ago # -
th0m
Beechwold
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i have been playing with their gps data on their site for quite some time, and i also have been looking at the google transit data (GTFS). they definitely are in a good position as far as the data goes.
In GTFS, they specify:
4312 stops
3511 "trips"
66 routes
286,253 scheduled stop timesFrom my collection of their GPS / radiolocation data, they have something like 220 buses.
rolling something out as a total package is involved in a way not entirely unlike other road projects, i imagine.
anyway, here's a thing i am not finished with, but basically you just click on a route (after it loads, like 10 seconds, sorry... working on *that*) and you get a playback of the buses on that route:
http://cotalytics.appspot.com/static/data2.html
click on a route, then click anywhere to return to the route listthat only works on firefox, safari, and the iphone or ipod touch. if you have IE, there is also this full screen map: http://cotalytics.appspot.com/static/cotalytics.html
this is driven by google's appengine. it collects the data from the cota site, and stores it into a distributed memcache, keeping a history of reading for every minute from the last month.
i have split up the GTFS data and am working on a way to parallelize the processing of the data in order to rectify the gps readings against the published schedule. hopefully (in my spare time, slowly, and only doing the fun things, not the hard things :P) i can give you some kind of calculated prediction of when a bus will be arriving at a stop near you.
i really like the LED screens, and personally they would make my bus riding experience much better.
if you are a programmer, let me know if you would interested in playing around with this stuff:
http://www.python.org
http://code.google.com/appengine
http://www.danga.com/memcached/
http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html
http://www.json.org/
http://www.djangoproject.com/
http://www.jquery.com
http://www.processingjs.orgpeople playing with flash or something else on other sites or services i can probably give you some kind of JSON endpoint to query or something.
and you can find me on twitter: http://twitter.com/th0ma5
someone on my twitter (matt? michael? amy?) posted some pictures of these LED signs overseas, and they're pretty quick and easy to look at, and tell you just what you need to know exactly where you need it.
text messaging would be killer of course, too. they have a really good automated menu system of their published schedule that is even kind of fun to navigate around hitting the touch tones... i think you get to it by just calling their main number.
Posted 2 years ago # -
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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For those of us without the fancy smart phones, text messaging would be great.
Posted 2 years ago # -
michaelcoyote
!seabus
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The Wayfarer wrote >>
Google Maps on the iPhone lists all of the expected arrival times. I rely on it pretty heavily and have had no problems.Google maps on my E71 (symbyan s60) and I'd imagine other smartphones (like android, blackberry, etc.) provides this as well..
Still, text would be a good addition..
Posted 2 years ago # -
heresthecasey
OSU
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OSU has the led signs at some cabs stops and they're usually pretty accurate. Help me know if a bus is right around the corner or if its faster to walk.
One thing id really like cota to do tho is just list arrival times at all the stops like they do at the ones on campus and downtown.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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lifeontwowheels wrote >>
For those of us without the fancy smart phones, text messaging would be great.Yeah, I think that's the idea behind the initial rollout of the simpler technology... having a wider userbase. I'm sure many bus riders (and potential bus riders) have texting service with their phones while not everyone has web browsing services yet.
Posted 2 years ago # -
CMH2579
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At OSU's CABS bus service we just rolled out text messaging for next bus arrivals, you just text "TXTCABS [stop#]" to 41411, and a reply will be made for the next 6 buses.
In addition to the 11 LED signs (with several more on the way) on campus, there is also a live map.
Transportation Route Information Program (TRIP)
The website is both Java and text based for versatility.
It would be more handy on a city-wide level, but still pretty cool stuff.
Posted 2 years ago # -
unejoliefille
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Dear COTA,
The idea behind the bus is that it is simple, timely and effective. I don't need you to crowd my inbox or slow my computer down with your PDF or Real Time maps. Just post arrival times at each stop and do you best to be on time.
Love, Me
Posted 2 years ago # -
Jeftrokat
Grandview
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Why doesn't COTA just integrate their existing bus location system with NextBus.com. They provide real-time location information for bus and train systems across North America via the internet, text messages, and mobile web.
They could roll something like this out in a matter of months, and for a fraction of the price. We're going to have to wait till 2011 for text messaging!?!?
Posted 2 years ago #
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