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Fonction

A mobile app that gives access to realtime bus schedules.

Accessible via mobile web on smartphones, and by phone/SMS.

This app was designed to be used on your smartphone and works best in Webkit (Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Android, iOS).

Note - The following features have been disabled until the live feed comes back:

Realtime schedule access via phone and SMS.
Realtime schedule access via mobile web.

Sources de données utilisées

OC Transpo GTFS Feed: http://www.gtfs-data-exchange.com/agency/oc-transpo/
OC Transpo Live GPS Feed: https://github.com/titanous/octranspo-gps-wrapper/wiki

Atouts de l’application pour les résidents

Have you ever wondered if you missed the bus, or if it was just running late? This app provides the answer to that question by giving you up-to-date realtime schedules in the palm of your hand.

Commentaires

  1. Brad Nixon

    I've tried this on the website; it's pretty cool, but there are a few things that are annoying about it:

    1) The listing of bus routes for a stop is not sorted well- this is especially obvious if you call up stop 3000 (MacKenzie King) which has a lot of routes. It would be best if there were 2 options: sort by route number, or sort by arrival time.

    2) The routes should show the actual destination names, not simply eastbound/westbound

    3) It is not obvious which trips are late; these should be highlighted somehow.

    4) If the arrival time for a bus is within an hour, it would be easier to see the time until arrival (eg. 10 minutes), rather than the actual time (e.g. 15:10).

    I hope you continue to work on this- it's a great tool!

  2. Stephen

    I used this app today. It worked like a charm. I was able to step out there door and get to my stop with minimal waiting time. I did not need to guess if my bus was going to be five minutes early or 15 minutes late.

    I will however echo @Brad Nixon's comments. Stops and buses can be difficult to find if you are not located near the stop in question or know the stop number.

  3. kyle

    very cool app, saw it on Reddit.

  4. Kyle

    Works great so far!
    Brad's points would make it even better. Maybe a few minor tweaks on descriptions of things; green bar under time vs yellow bar, etc. Great potentiality, will be using on my iPhone daily!

  5. jeanette

    Good idea; implementation needs some work though.

    The app has issues recognizing bus stops that begin in "0" (such as "0937"). I've tried entered both "0937" and "937" with no luck. Using the "Find Me" feature will solve this, but it's an extra step that takes time away from catching the bus!

    App also crashed several times when I tried to use it between 4:35 and 5:00 today. The "Find Me" feature still isn't working, and error messages pop up when I punch the actual stop number (or rather, the closest stop that doesn't begin with "0").

    Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon!

  6. Jonathan Rudenberg

    @Brad Nixon:
    1) I've sorted them by route number. Look for an improved listing coming soon.
    2) This is a limitation of the API, as soon as I have a solution, the headsigns will be on the page.
    3) They are now:
    Green: estimated arrival on time (within 60 seconds of scheduled arrival)
    Red: estimated arrival early
    Orange: estimated arrival late
    Grey: scheduled arrival
    4) I'll be adding a toggle for this soon.

    @jeanette
    1) Stop numbers starting with 0 now work properly.
    2) The app is currently not working due to the OC Transpo API being down. Not sure when it's going to be back up. This is out of my control.
    3) I've fixed the Find Me feature.

    Thanks for giving it a try!

  7. jeanette

    Thanks, Jonathan! The colour-code explanation is very helpful too. Good work!

  8. Manoj Bimal G

    Good Application

  9. M Bright

    sorry but terrible app, yet over 80 votes? Hmm sounds like some cheating going on.

  10. Jonathan Rudenberg

    @M Bright

    Please tell me what you think makes this is a "terrible" app? I'm always looking for suggestions on improvement. I have gotten nothing but positive feedback from the >50 people I've communicated with about whereismybus.ca, and several hundred people use it daily.

  11. Brian

    Nicely implemented - simple and functional.

  12. rusheeshwar

    nice

  13. D Woods

    Why did they have to remove the live gps bus data?

    Although this app isn't the only one that used the live GPS bus data, and despite the fact that it is only really useful with it, its getting my vote. I am also writing my councilor and the new transit commission members to get this data feed reinstated.

    The excuse that GPS data is inaccurate? Someone better go tell that to the US army who use GPS positioning in almost everything they do! It is also said they are working on their own app? Why waste the taxpayer's money developing the app when someone has done the work for you? I mean wasn't that one of the benefits of this open competition and the opening of the data? Spend the IT money to directly improve the raw feed, to develop even better accuracy, but offer the current feed as is at the same time! Its IT project Waterfall design 101. In my limited testing it was generally accurate, and even if slightly inaccurate it is infinitely better than nothing!

    Other cities provide this info (all with a disclaimer about its potential inaccuracy) and given how Ottawa is currently much more reliant on buses for its public transportation which get stuck in traffic, bad weather, etc. all the time, an app with real-time info is sorely needed.

    New York: http://bustime.mta.info/bustime/home.jsp

    Chicago: http://www.ctabustracker.com/bustime/home.jsp

    Seattle: http://onebusaway.org/

    Portland (As far as I know the pioneer in live-tracking and open transit data with trimet):

    http://trimet.org/transittracker/about.htm

    And San Francisco and 60 other communities (including Laval, Toronto, Banff...) contracting this service out to a 3rd party called Nextbus:

    http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/agencySelector.jsp

  14. Andrzej Antoszkiewicz

    This is a great app and it's too bad that the city has blocked access to the feed. Let us know what we can do to help get it back up! @andrzeja

  15. Chris Ryan

    OC Transpo has recently shut down the feed of data into this application.

    That is absolutely ridiculous.

    Pressure needs to be put on them to reverse this action and make the data publicly available once again.

    Let them know that this is unnacceptable.

    http://www.octranspo1.com/about-octranspo/contact

    This is a great idea for an app, and OC transpo's "hopes to release a similar application later in the year" are redundant. There's already an app that does this. It's obvious that work needs to be done on it to improve, but it was released only recently. Let the man work.

    To Octranspo: It's OUR service, you bureaucrats.

    Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2011/01/22/ottawa-bus-data-122.html#ixzz1BxZ8Miw1

  16. RisaBiji

    voted

  17. M. A. Walker

    Great app, Jonathan!

    M. Walker

  18. Isaac Merson

    Next Time I visit Ottawa I will definitely be using this App!

  19. kiran

    voted man

  20. John

    I was working late last night, and I noticed that while the votes of the other apps stayed fixed, the vote count of this app seems to be increasing by a fixed amount every 30mins , like clock work….well, I thought I should make my observation known… It's 3:08am now..

  21. John

    Its 4:40am, the vote count of this app is still being increased by a fixed amount at this time of the night..Well, more observation .....This is very very suspicious..

  22. rohit

    like it very much and my vote no.443,thanks

  23. Jody McNulty

    sounds like a great application !

  24. krista cooke

    Yay Jonathan from Wakefield!

  25. M Villeneave

    If the comment of John is right in regards to a certain amount of votes being
    deposited every 30mins like clockwork, Then something else is responsible for the votes. it’s humanly Impossible for these votes to be coming from REAL people especially at that time of the night at specific times.
    .””.I have an idea of what is happening”. I will keep it to myself for now.
    My second point is, if OC Transpo has stopped the fed of data to this App
    (What OC did is not acceptable either), it means this apps is not functioning anymore.. the app is now just a basic bus schedule. SO, what are people voting for, or where
    Are the votes coming from?...Very Pathetic
    Hope the city takes note of this.

  26. Joseph Stiglitz

    SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

  27. Phyllis Wedding

    GREAT JOB !!! Go get 'em Jonathan !!!

  28. Lee Hutchinson

    Go Johnathon go!

  29. Jake Blakk

    This app went over 300 votes in 24 hours definitly the creator wrote a bot to vote and can you blame him? Whoever designed the site didnt really put much effort into the voting aspect. No captcha no confirming emails, etc. Oh well hopefully the decision stays only with the panel of judges.

  30. John

    Well, I’m happy some else noticed it. Interestingly,most of these votes occur overnight (see my comments above). I agree with you Jake – it’s the cities fault. I will be working late tonight again, and will fire an email (opendata@ottawa.ca) to the contest organizers when the bott starts voting for this app tonight.

  31. Jonathan Rudenberg

    John, M Villeneave, Jake Blakk:

    I am not running a bot to get votes. It can be trivially verified on the server side that all the votes are not coming from the same IP. I resent this unfounded allegation.

  32. John

    Votes coming from different IP addresses; that's the best explanation you have to offer? Well, I hope the city IT guys are smart enough to know how IPs can be easily re-setted. I know what I saw - votes being added to this app every 30 minutes throughout Thursday night. What's you're explanation for that? That too can be trivially verified you know. Let's see what pattern you have tonight. 1:17am Friday (541 votes).

  33. Jake Blakk

    Jonathan:
    Nothing in your app has changed, its basic app which does nothing different than all the other OC apps here yet has insanely more votes.
    For the whole month you had low votes in comparison to OttawaGuide, than in 1 day you jumped 300 votes, what caused a huge influx of votes for you in 1 day, no other app moved that much on that day, not even close. Not even the OttawaGuide one moved more than 10 votes that day.
    Id love to see the site stats for this domain i bet there are more votes than unique vistors, hell im willing to bet 90% of registered accounts dont even have valid email addresses as you can type anything to register here.
    Sorry but you gamed the system. But like i said its the site designers fault not yours.
    All we can do is hope the judges get the final say in who wins and are not swayed by votes.

  34. Kevin

    OC transpo already has an app for this and the oc transpo one is much easier to use

  35. Chris Wise

    Why was Jonathan's app so popular and why did it receive a boatload of votes overnight? Because it was awesome and simple and people loved what it gave them - a straightforward, thin, clean and uncluttered site that was quick to use. The data was accurate and he obviously struck a chord with people.

    I don't want to put words in Jonathan's mouth, but I am quite certain he has better things to do than fake votes. Word got around VERY quickly on Twitter when he posted the app notice and many of us retweeted that message. He was also on CBC Radio and TV as well. Wide audiences.

    I hope that OC Transpo does the right thing and solicits his help in jumpstarting their own app/site development.

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