a little bit of future goes a long way · 2009-05-19 20:44
As any commuter knows, on London transport, you make your own luck… and any dark knowledge of the mystic signs and routes help tremendously.
I drew something very similar to this 6 or so years ago: personal devices that help you understand and manipulate public transport. At the time, I imagined it would be local servers on the buses, and a web browser; this is an iPhone, an app, fixed data (collected in some undetermined way), GPS, and a few user choices. Same same but different.
Of course, in the meantime, TfL have deployed iBus onto the network (and ignored general public access to route, bus and travel data), we have iBus Emma announcing and displaying route numbers and next stops throughout the journey – ‘good enough’ information for some uses, if you’re now familiar with the previously little used bus stop names. But services like London Bus (app store link) let you plan on the fly, and feel confident on unfamiliar routes. Cracking the bus network is really the key to most cities, and we’re nearly at the point of directed bus serendipity. In London, at least.
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I really hope TFL don’t try and shut this one down…
— Tom Taylor 19.05.09 #
I use Malcolm’s Tube Deluxe app and had been thinking about whether or not to buy his Bus app over the last couple of days – this entry has sealed it.
The other solution is to sit on the bus staring at the little blue circle on google maps on the iphone moving slowly, haltingly, towards your destination…
Surprisingly, the search also works for finding bus stops: once it has a lock on your location, a search for “Bus Stop J” actually works useful in those places where there are 20 bus stops within 2 minute’s walk, with a maze of one-way streets sending buses in illogical directions.
Heh.
I use mobile tranportation apps all the time. And I wish I had one that was like this.
I’m like @mayo, watching my dot move on a map.
But one interesting thing is that, while you envisioned a system to provide this, the eventual execution was pretty different.
Yeah, there’s still more to be done to make public transport apps more useful