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Domain: tri-met.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to tri-met.org.
Comments · 9
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Re:Fantastic. Now just add GPS info
What they need to do next is to work with the municipalities* to integrate GPS tracking on all city buses so anyone, anywhere, can get real time info on when the next bus will arrive. No more waiting at the bustop in the rain!
Actually, Portland's transit system already uses GPS to track each vehicle, keeping buses on schedule, and in the last couple of years has added an arrival time checker to its website and on electronic signs at key transit centers. -
Great work!
Portland's tri-met system already has an excellent trip planner. Google's transit applies that along their map as they do with driving directions. Can't wait to see this for other cities!
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Portland, OR's Tri-Met
The trip planner is a wonderful companion to Portland's (tri-metropolitan) transportation system of busses and light rail.
http://tri-met.org/.
There are also lots of bike paths that are neatly mapped somewhere, but I don't have a link. -
what's funny, though...
Maybe the rich snobs in their Lincoln Navigators and Ford Excursions don't like paying more than the poor guy in the Geo Metro?
What's really sad about this, is that rich people are still less affected (as a percentage of their income) than poor people are. And before you say that poor people can just use Tri-Met or some other public transport, remember how much of Oregon is rural.
By the way, if I still lived there, my first challenge to that law would be to have them prove that my car wasn't on a flatbed truck when it was moving around, with the flatbed truck presumably reporting its own movements for taxation purposes, already. And I'd like to see them try to charge me for building an encasing box for the unit to block GPS reception when I'm not at the inspection site, if they win that battle. -
Portland, Oregon's solutions
All public transit in the Portland, Oregon metro area has some sort of tracking hardware installed, with several methods available for the public to view it.
Several years ago, TriMet (the main public transit service in Portland) installed GPS/radio units on every bus in the system. Originally, these units only gave information to drivers and those transit system managing folk, enabling them to know the exact location of each bus. The units are mounted next to the farebox facing the driver, and display the current time (I always set my watch from that), how early or late the bus is, and if the bus is on route. The boxes beep and alert the driver if the bus runs more than 1 minute early or 5 minutes late, or if it deviates from route. In the last year or two, they have begun to install 4-line LED displays at major bus transfer points, which indicates the time until the next few busses. A typical display might read something like "15 to Gateway TC due; 6 to Gertz Rd 6 mins; 15 to Gateway TC 8 mins; 15 to Gateway TC 4:50" (The display goes to "due" when the bus is within a block or two of the stop; any bus due to arrive more than 15 minutes from the current time has the scheduled arrival time rather than countdown displayed). This information is also available on the web for all bus lines at all stops at a page on the TriMet site. I'm not aware of telephone access to this information, though schedules are available from an automated phone system.
On the TriMet MAX light rail, the information is obtained from loops buried under the tracks. Time until next train arrival (Similar display to what was depicted above, with Red Line or Blue line and one of a few destination endpoints in place) is displayed at a few major stops. This is unfortunately not as accurate as the GPS system, and can be sometimes several minutes off. I heard one story where a bridge malfunction trapped all the Red Line trains on the wrong side of the river, yet the displays would count down to the arrival until "Red Line to Airport: Due" would come and pass and no Red Line train would come. This is obvious a serious breakdown in the system in a number of ways, and really shows that a public address system (something our city's transit lacks) is necessary. No matter how good the system, it will fail eventually. (For another example of that, read this amusing story about a conspiracy of a bus door, a mailbox, and safety mechanisms getting a bus stuck at one stop for several minutes.)
Finally, on the Portland Streetcar, a tram line overseen by the City of Portland rather than the regional TriMet organization, each streetcar has a NextBus unit onboard, which works by means of GPS. Perhaps the most comprehensive example of this sort of information available in Portland, every single streetcar stop (with the exception of perhaps two or three system which have no practical access to power and/or telecom) has a two-line LED. The display rotates between displaying: the current time, the NextBus URL, "Portland Streetcar: No Smoking on Platform", and the time until the next two streetcar arrivals (e.g. "Streetcar due in 3min & 18min"). This information is also available on the NextBus website for every stop in the system, and I believe this information is also available via WAP. -
Re:New names for Intel...Actually, the names for recent Intel chips are from locations within a short trip on Tri-Met or a short drive from thier Hillsboro, OR facilities, where they do pretty close to everything.
Tualitin is the name of the plains Hillsboro sits on, as well as a city south of Portland.
Williamette is the name of the river running through Portland, as well as the region overall (Williamette Valley).
More likely, Intel will name new stuff things like Boring, Portland, Forest Grove, Tigard, Beaverton, Columbia, Hood, or other locale names...
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Vote Socialist or quit whining! -
NextBusWell, there is a related thing that doesn't have the privacy stuff, doesn't have people trying to read their cell phones while driving, and helps to clear up traffic. It's called NextBus (www.nextbus.com for the paranoid).
Basically, GPS transmitters on buses and trains to give you positions and time until arrivals via the web, your cell phone, pagers, etc. I know that Tri-Met is going to be using it for the new Portland Steetcar.
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Re:CD-R's *and* gas? What are we going to do?2) The individual trip costs less than gas
3) mass transit supplemented with taxi and/or car rental costs less than the total cost of car ownership.Here, our local Mass Transit system charges $65 for a 3-month pass, or $260/year. That's less than my insurance for my car for 6 months. In addition, all faculty and staff at the local college can ride for free (for the students it comes out of our student fees, a few bucks a term). A lot of local companies also pay a small amount per person and all their workers can ride for free.
My dad rides the bus every day in Portland ($595/year for a pass see www.tri-met.org) even though he owns a car. Why? because it's cheaper than paying for parking in downtown portland.
Just because you own a car doesn't mean it's best to use it for commuting, etc. But sometimes it does make the most sense. I do believe a lot more people should ride mass transit, but they're too lazy (I am often in this category, of course, I walk to work now).
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Not quite dead...For the Electric Trolley I can just look outside and see the Max in Portland:
http://www.tri-met.org/max.htm
Ribbon Microphones are still used by several bands... because of their "warm sound."
I'm sure that some of the others on this list are still in wide use today. I've seen Pneumatic Posts in all sorts of banks, and some large stores. (Nike Town in Downtown portland uses them to move around shoes...)
The Amiga is not quite dead too. I'm not sure about WordStar, but I know people who still swear by WordPerfect 6.0 (the blue an white version in DOS).
My grandpa still uses a slide rule to figure out all sorts of math. I think he's just showing off, but when he's faster at it then I am with a TI-89, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Reel mowers are still in use. Not just by old farts who refuse to change either. They're waaaay cheaper, and for small lawns not all that inconvenient.
Automatic Watches... uhhh Seiko Kinetic? Anyone?
Everytime I see football I see airships. Granted they're not used for transportation, except for the crew, but they're still there, and useful.
It's interesting to see a list of things that are refered to as passed technologies, all of which are still in use somewhere today. Perhaps people need to open their eyes and see that these things are out there with their loser elegance beating out the "winners" that lack simplicity.