Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
London, or "Metro" in Paris. The code could be expanded to re-use your coordinates to
determine in which city the user is currently located, and the search text could be
localized accordingly.
Limitations to our Approach
Our examples so far are good for finding ourselves or local transport stops or stations.
This definitely helps with working out possible transit options from any given location,
but like an unfinished journey, it leaves us just short of where we truly want to be. We
might know there's a bus stop just around the corner, or a train station just down the
street, but do we know what services operate from those points, and to where they're
headed? Do we know when the next service is scheduled to arrive? Do we even know if
there are any scheduled services at that stop at all?
If only there were some way to find matching transit schedule data for the transit stops
we've discovered!
Introducing Transit Data Resources
So far, we've explored how to find ourselves and possible transport options around us,
and plot the results on a map. But as any traveler can tell you, knowing
when
transport
options operate is just as important as knowing from where they operate. Wouldn't it be
great if there were ways of using bus timetables, train timetables, and other transport
schedules to expand the possibilities of our transit application? Well, there is a way!
Making Use of Transport Schedules and Timetables
The history of trying to work with a transport agency's data is long and tortuous. To
spare you the pain that developers before you had to endure, we'll cut our story short:
we'll focus on "then" and "now.” Before 1995, dealing with various government or
bureaucratic agencies to access their transit data was an exercise in costly masochism.
Undocumented proprietary formats, obstructionist public officials, and perverted notions
of ownership clouded any attempt to use "public" transit data.
In 1995, an employee of the TriMet transit agency in Portland - the major city of Oregon
state in the USA - was frustrated at the proprietary mapping and transit data systems
and sources available to her. She wrote to many of the leading mapping and geolocation
services at the time, to ask what plans they had to incorporate public transport data into
their services. Only one company responded: Google.
From a developer's perspective at the time, dealing with the erratic—and even at times
capricious—attitudes of agencies that held custody of the data was immensely
frustrating and complex. But TriMet's probing question opened up the idea that
frustrated developers who wanted access to the data were matched by frustrated data
custodians and public officials who wanted to see the data better used to serve their
communities.
