Personalized transit planning for the AATA

Some notes on something that doesn't exist yet, but should.

Imagine a service that has URLs like

http://wheresmybus.org/route/5/inbound/packard+granger/3
http://wheresmybus.org/route/any/inbound/packard+state/0
http://wheresmybus.org/route/any/any/stone-school+eisenhower/4

and which has a very simple output of the times you need to leave to catch the next bus

8:04
8:22

based on the following:

real time bus location information (via mobile ridetrak), for buses already en route, and then estimated times for scheduled buses not yet visible. This is scrapable from existing services.

previously estimated, interpolated times for time points, so "packard+granger" is known to be "packard+south" plus 2 minutes. Interpolation is something that the AATA won't provide, but if you know your route you can probably get within a minute or two.

user specified time offsets to show time you spend to get to the bus stop, the "3" in the above giving me time to walk out the door and walk to the bus, but not to run.

The "any" route variant would let you simultaneously get information about next-bus routing for stops that have multiple lines serving them, and also let you go in any direction just in case you want the "anywhere but here" bus system.

In my typical use of mobile ridetrak I often do this computation in my head (oh, the bus is 8 minutes late...let's see, that means I can leave at ... or walk down how many stops?) That's a lot of math for what should be straightforward for a computer to put together, and if you crunched this down tiny enough it could fit on a very tiny screen.

Comments

[Brian]

Really makes me wish AATA had a unique ID for each stop (not just time point).

Project zero, to be completed in advance of this one, is the streets of ann arbor database

[Matt]

Seconding Brian

Text:
5 out 1209

to
GOAATA

To find when the next outbound 5 hits stop 1209

[Matt]

Add Monte Carlo predictions to make the estimate more accurate