Google Ride Finder Announced

nthitz writes "Need a ride? Now Google has included the ability to lookup where taxis are in real time! The new service is called Google Ride Finder. Using a combination of Google Maps and Google Local you can see where certain taxis are at the moment. Currently there are only 11 major cities that are supported, and there are still only a few cab companies that are involved. The service is pretty cool, but if they don't add more cities/companies, who knows how well it will do. For more info check out Google's Blog."

Comments

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[tjxn]

I can do something close in Portland, Oregon... Accessing the Tri-Met website (www.tri-mer.org/wap) on my cell phone tells me how long until the bus I'm waiting for reaches my stop...

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[kyoko21]

Actually, a few years ago when I was at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Transit had GPS units mounted on their buses which enabled the realtime display of the location of their buses. This was particularly neat because I could check at anytime from the website of where their buses were and I could run time my run to the bus stop. Unfortunately, they don't have this running on their site anymore... very sad :-/ Talk about 'big brother'.

Re:Google Gmail April Fools: Infinity and Beyond S

[SchnauzerGuy]

The counter started at midnight (EST), April 1st with the value of 1000 megabytes and will run until 6AM (EST), April 2nd, and will end with an value of "over 2000 megabytes of storage".

var START = 1112331600000;
var END = 1112439600000;

function updateQuota() {
if (!quota) {
return;
}

var now = (new Date()).getTime();
if (now < START) {
setTimeout(updateQuota, 1000);
} else if (now > END) {
quota.innerHTML = 'Over 2000';
} else {
quota.innerHTML = format(((now - START)/(END - START)*1025) + 1025);
setTimeout(updateQuota, 50);
}
}

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[artifex2004]

Does this just follow the schedule and add a bit to appease you? or does this actually track the busses and calculate in real time based upon the driver's habbits, road conditions, speed, etc. how long it will take to get there?

That's an excellent point. Actually, unless Super Shuttle has changed its operations, the only regular stops here in Dallas, TX, are D/FW airport (I don't think it does Love Field) and several hotels. Anywhere else, you have to call the dispatcher, to send the shuttle by. So seeing who's near you is somewhat useless, for this company. Still, it's beta, and soon they may have some of the taxis on here, also.

You know, some of these companies do already use GPS and radio uplinks to track their vehicles, so they don't have to calculate anything.

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[SoCalChris]

Many cities that use the Siemens TransitMaster system have this capability. Here in Long Beach, Ca, we're getting it implemented within the next few months.

http://www.ilgsystems.com/productservice-transit-t iswork.htm
http://www.ilgsystems.com/productservice-transit-t isbus.htm

Some of our busier stops, and the main transit hub downtown already have live feeds updated in real time displaying the next bus arrival & departure time. The system is dynamic, and figures in delays due to traffic, detours, or if the bus is running late for any other reasons. It is basically a stripped down version of the software used by our dispatchers.