It is now possible to provide citizens with real-time bus departure information on a cell phone, notes FleetBeat.com. Vehicle tracking, web-enabled cell phones and Google Maps have enabled agencies make their schedule and departure data accessible to the public.
Some agencies have chosen to make their schedule and departure data freely available and accessible for use by anyone. The raw data can then be used by interested developers.
But a heated debate has started amongst public transit officials, says FleetBeat. Some agencies want to charge developers for access to this data. Public transit supporters and developers oppose this with the belief that open data enables developers to create applications that make transit systems more user-friendly, encouraging more people to ride transit.
Google’s public transportation planning tool combines schedule data and mapping. Passengers can visit google.com/intl/en/landing/transit and enter their starting point and final destination. Passengers are provided with step-by-step directions to their destination. Getting data on Google Transit is easy and free of charge. Here’s how to participate.
Mobile applications make transit easier to use for new riders and encourages more people to use public transit. Riders have schedule information at their fingertips which allows them to use transit as efficiently as possible. It also saves staff time for agencies.
The only negative some agencies see in providing their data to the public is the elimination of potential revenue from selling the data to developers. However, because the data is generated by taxpayer-funded agencies, the general consensus is that agencies should not profit from this data. Agencies that kept their data closed in hopes of selling it, such as New York City’s MTA—who recently released their data—have experienced extensive backlash from both the developer community and transit passengers.
Currently, 102 out of the 767 transit agencies in the United States have released their data to the public. Widely seen as the leader of this movement, TriMet, in Portland, Oregon has offered their transit data to Google and the public since 2005. Beginning with an inquiry to Mapquest, Yahoo! and Google, TriMet was pivotal in the creation of the Google Transit Trip Planner in conjunction with Google developer Chris Harrelson.
Since then, developers have created over 25 applications using TriMet’s data to make riding public transit easier for passengers. The applications provide a multitude of information including public transit directions, arrival information, and even alerts for napping passengers as they near their destinations.
According to Tim McHugh, TriMet’s Chief Technology Officer, “We want to provide all the information that we know to be useful and put it out there for other people to figure out the right uses. We were getting requests from customers for data in specific formats or on specific devices and what we really wanted to do was flip it around to the public, to say, ‘Okay, there’s a lot of good programmers out there. Here are the tools you need to do it.’”
The flash demonstration above shows TriMet’s Android application called TransitCast feeding live data to show estimated arrival times at a selected stop.
In the past twelve months, a handful of other large transit agencies have made their data public including MBTA in Massachusetts, the CTA in Chicago, SEPTA in Philadelphia, SFMTA in San Francisco, and New York City’s MTA.
FleetBeat says providing open access to data is simple:
- Export data to the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS): Google explains how to publish data to the GTFS, which is the widely accepted format for transit data. Other formats, such as Transit Communications Interface Profiles (TCIP), TransXChange, and ATCO-CIF, also exist but aren’t used extensively in North America.
- Provide a URL where a feed can be downloaded: Create either a developer page such as developer.trimet.org, or provide a URL from a third party that is authorized to host the feed, like the GTFS Data Exchange (www.gtfs-data-exchange.com).
- Create a License Agreement: A license agreement, or terms of use, will outline how the data can be used by developers. An example can be seen here: developer.trimet.org/terms_of_use.shtml.
- Keep Developers Aware of Schedule Changes: A simple RSS feed can alert developers when changes have been made to an agency’s schedule data so they can update their applications and ensure they are accurate.
Agencies that release their data will improve customer service, save time and money, increase ridership, and generate a positive image, says FleetBeat. Developers can create mobile applications that make riding transit easier for customers without agencies needing to invest time and money into development.
