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How Google Is Remapping Public Transportation
waderoush writes "Google wants to 'organize the world's information,' but there isn't a marketplace or a category of knowledge it can organize without remaking it in the process. A case in point: public transportation. Largely outside the media spotlight, Google has wrought a quiet revolution over the last five years in the way commuters get schedule information for local buses and trains, and the way public transit agencies communicate with their riders. GTFS and GTFS-realtime, which Google invented, have become the de facto world standards for sharing transit data, and have opened up space for a whole ecosystem of third-party transit app developers. This in-depth article looks at the history of GTFS and Google's efforts to give people information (largely via their smartphones) that can help them plan their commutes on public transportation — and, not incidentally, drive a lot less."
After missing three or four timed-transfer connections, I've given up on Google Maps for transit.
I'm sure it works sometimes, but since they've made it impossible to check their work (they don't give you access to the schedule data) it's a hell of a lot easier just to check the schedule myself.
That said it does work okay for short bus trips, but I've already got an app on my phone that tells me when the bus is arriving base on real-time data. No need to bring Google Maps into the picture.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'm a dispatcher with a small transit agency out in the Midwest on Google Transit, and I have to say its been great for us and our riders. New passengers are typically unfamiliar with locations around towns or unfamiliar with the local bus schedule, and giving them a trip planner that is already built into a familiar interface on Google sure makes life easier on them. The GTFS feed itself is also useful for external developers of programs that provide extra service to passengers, like Android or iPhone applications, or even members of the public that just want a well-documented view of exactly how the buses in a town operate. The fact that all of this is free is just icing on the cake.
A shout out to Bob Heitzman for his wonderful Excel-based tools (https://sites.google.com/site/rheitzman/) that enabled our system and others to get on to Google in the first place. Anyone out there who works for a small public transit system should check those out if you're wondering about supporting a GTFS feed. They aren't fancy, but they work well for outfits that don't have the manpower to run a full set of scheduling software.
(Shameless Plug)
Smart Ride has support for over 36 agencies in North America, all with GPS-based real-time arrival predictions, alerts, and other real-time data. And it's free.
http://www.codemass.com/smartride/
GTFS? Get The Fucking Subway?
hmm.. the standard, i would of assumed that TCIP was the standard that google is not adhering to. GTFS is interesting and good in it's own way, but it's devoid of information that's useful to transit systems, such as Run information and timepoints. Without that information it will only be a subset of the information needed.
“The biggest thing holding us back in the U.S. is land use patterns,” says Brian Ferris, a Google Transit engineer based in Zurich, Switzerland. “European cities are more compact, so public transportation dollars go a lot farther. In the U.S., huge parts of our cities were built after the automobile came to prominence. But we can’t change American cities tomorrow.
California doesn't want to change in order to be like Switzerland. What makes him think that we would? We don't see Southern California as a problem that needs to be fixed. We see it as an improvement over compacted cities.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Not that long ago people were lamenting loudly that Google was EVIL
To those who say Google is EVIL :
Are you sure you want to let Google do this?
Why don't you get Facebook and/or Yahoo and/or Microsoft to do this instead?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Too bad there isn't any public transit from where I live to where I need to go. My commute in Google Transit is 10.5 hrs and 110 miles, one way, and involves 5 miles of walking (by itself not a problem) on roads with no pedestrian access, taxi cabs, 2 trains and 4 buses.
The drive in the car is about 35 miles / 35 minutes.
Public transit in the U.S. assumes that everyone goes into a major city to work, then goes out of the city to live. The public transit routes are spokes in/out of the central hub. That works for many, but in many U.S. metropolitan centers there are rings of suburbs intermixed with businesses surrounding the city (because it is expensive to live or operate a business in the city). There is generally a major highway linking these suburbs and business centers, but no public transit follows these routes.
Somebody please tell this to the Japanese. While their bus service is decent enough, getting information about routes and timetables here is virtually impossible. All the Japanese bus company websites are still Web 0.8, there are many many private bus companies even within the same city and there's no one service that aggregates all the information.
Google Bus would be a great service here. They have already done it for trains, which works really well.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Google Transit is not news to those of us who work in transportation. I work in Sustainable Transportation/Transportation Demand Management and my job is to get people to do (practically) anything but drive a car alone. Since I also work at a University, it's also my job to convince students not to bring cars to school (at least for the first few years) and it would be SO MUCH EASIER if I could convince Google to jump into multi-modal trip planning. Why?
Well, let's assume you're at my University and want to get somewhere 85 miles south without a car. You might be able to bus to the local train station, catch a southbound train, and then catch another bus to your final destination. However, the bus service here is contracting (sharply) due to budget constraints so a bus connection to a train will not always be an option.
I often suggest biking to the train, riding the train, and then biking to the final destination, but since Google Maps treats transit (bus/train) and biking separately, my suggestion can only go so far. It requires some rather involved planning for a novice to get from our campus to the train station by bike.
There are other options like OpenTripPlanner which, when coupled with a well-mapped OpenStreetMaps, can be an incredible way to plan multi-modal trips in addition to mapping out literally everything in an area from streets to bike lanes to sidewalks, stairs, and handicap accessible ramps... but it takes A LOT of work to perfect a local map and then to host an OpenTripPlanner server. It's relatively easy, but it's man-hour intense.
So, come on Google, pretty please.
Unless what any /. reader observes as realtime data, GTFS Realtime is just not realtime transit data. GTFS Realtime updates a GTFS feed with current information if a planned trip was canceled. It is in its current form not telling the actual positions of busses, their punctuality etc. If you want to look more into why realtime is not realtime, go to their usergroup and search for wave. A nice thread on why Google Wave (aka ProtoBuf combined with XMPP) does make sense here - but too complex for Google and their partners.
Next to that its great that an inferior defacto presentation standard is send into the world as 'cool and amazing' but the only reason Google is pushing this is because it is simple. It is not like SIRI, NeTEx, Transmodel, etc. that every operator out there has running in their management systems. What Google did with GTFS was: lets materialize all possible data. Tell operators that their timetable generation is wrong. Let them fix timetable generation. Use timetable and a networkgraph to do some routing *advise*, not do trip planning.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
I came to US from the Czech Republic, where we have used idos.cz long before Google Transit started. Even today, idos.cz has much better interface than Google Transit. For a non-stop trip the difference is small, but I find it very difficult to trust Google Transit for a trip with several connections. For example, if I have only a few minutes to make a connection, I would like to see a whole route of a bus/train so that I can guess if it could be late or not.
Enough to offset their private jet fetish?
Advertising was always evil.
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LOL
I'm including this second line because /. complained that my reply was in all caps.
Again, LOL
Considering the fact that there are over seven billion people on the face of the planet, and the fact that you're posting on Slashdot, that number isn't even statistical noise.
Yes, but this is a stupid comment.
What does the iPhone use for maps? Google Maps. That means the vast majority of iPhone users if they're doing transit directions are using it. That's almost certainly true of Android phones. It was once true of Palm/HP phones, and it is probably still true of Blackberry's. That's just mobile. Who else has any good data on this that includes multiple transit systems in one query? Bing has some of it but it generally sucks.
The result I've seen from this is that now normal people "can" look up transit directions (they could before, but didn't).
Too bad you live somewhere where there is no public transit you mean. First, you are oversimplifying as there are plenty of places that don't fit your in to work out to home model. Regardless though (and we can't really have a conversation about it unless you say where you are), there are areas that are built so poorly that transit cannot support them because no one would ride and routes couldn't possibly anticipate where people are going. How is that public transit's fault? That is the fault of city planners and people who choose to live in those places. Southern Jersey is a good example -- how are you going to enact sane transportation policy when everywhere is the middle of nowhere?
I thought gp was a serious comment, but then .....
Google's offering has jelled the transit community's data formats.
I'm putting up the beta of my animated transit view soon; I'll be supporting Edmonton and Calgary, Canada initially but thanks to Google I can expand to many cities around the world almost instantly. ... too bad I'm not ready for a slashdotting or I'd put the link up here now. Maybe I'll have my beta ready later tonight.. it's close.
In some areas, Google Maps already provides multi-modal trip planning on public transportation, as long as those modes fall into that category. But it doesn't work very well. I can ask for driving directions between a city and an island which will include the ferry, but asking for public transit directions between the same two points routes me on Amtrak several hundred miles south, then various bus connections to ferries servicing various small islands before reaching a completely different ferry than the first mentioned one. Total time over twelve hours when the direct route on public transportation is about four. Clearly, their algorithms need improvement.
I didn't know it could do this. That's because after waiting seven YEARS for my street to show up on Google Maps correctly, I've long since given up using their sodding software.
Every other mapping app has had my street listed for ages. Google Maps is the only one that still can't find my address.
Funny this story should pop up today. I tried to take the bus yesterday. I was very impressed with the technology Google provided. Step by step and door to door instructions with timelines, bus times, bus numbers, and costs were incredibly accurate. It had me walk 6 miles, take a bus 4 miles, and then walk another mile all for a 4.1 mile trip. Cost by bus = $3.50. Cost by car = $2.85. I planned on walking but I ended up getting a ride. Too bad public transportation is such bullshit. If they would trash the Sprinter (train in San Diego) and make it a bike path I would ride my bike everywhere. Maybe start a rickshaw service. The streets are not a safe place to ride a bike. Google should evaluate the routes instead of reporting how badly they are planned.
That's sort of the point, fanboy. If Facebook, or Yahoo or Microsoft were doing the same things as Google they would be bashed to no end. When Google does shady things there are infinite excuses made by the fanbois.
I recently moved to the Bay Area, and when I arrived I didn't have a car for about two weeks. With my android tablet I've been able to navigate all around San Jose and San Francisco (and in-between) easily. Rather than needing to plan my trip ahead of time I would just look up places and then navigate to them. It worked out great. Of course, it helps to have a useful public transit system.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
There has been a quiet revolution in real-time public transport information in London (UK) also.
Transport for London has equipped all buses with real-time GPS and this info is available via web and SMS.
Apparently they are looking for third-party developers to use their APIs but I've not seen anything yet.
Here's how to find when the next bus is coming:
http://countdown.tfl.gov.uk/#/
Since most ticketing is now electronic (the Oyster card system) there is also live info an nearly all the millions of passengers; at the Transport Museum they have some displays showing this off.
Nico M, London, GB.
NextBus has been providing real-time bus data for years, and doing it better than Google. NextBus did all the hard work to make this work - they developed the position-reporting boxes that go on buses over a decade ago, got transit systems to adopt their technology, and developed a prediction system that figures out when the next bus will show up, based on live data and history. They even put signs in bus shelters that tell when the next bus will arrive.
There was substantial opposition in the transit industry at first. Some transit agencies didn't want accurate data on their operation publicly available. Some of them still don't. But the ones that do find it useful. The transit agency gets all the bus data and can evaluate how their operation is working.
Then some clown writes an article as if Google invented the technology. This is more like the old MIcrosoft tactic of "embrace, extend, devour".
I find it odd that Google Transit is not available in one of the most visited cities in the US, Orlando.
Wait, I know why, the Mouse wants everyone visiting to us their transportation service, for a "small" fee, screw the locals that want or need to use public transit.
If you need proof that Disney runs local and state government first lets look at the Light Rail system that took years longer to start building due to Disney condemning the project for allowing a stop being place on Disney property but also abjection to a stop being to close to the other theme parks in Orlando. Case in point #2; Disney abjection to the High Speed Rail system linking Orlando, Tampa and Miami Airports with stops in between but non near Disney. Case #3 It took Disney 20 years to allow Lynx (the local bus system) on Disney property, even for it's employees. When Disney decided to allow Lynx on property, Disney only let them have 1 bus stop for then 3 parks it took another 15 years for to get stops at all the parks.
Yes, I'm a long time cast member/employee of Disney in Orlando.
Come on Google we need you here, too.
I have been writing a blog advocating changing the transportation system. The blog gets zero comments and it has been a very lonely writing experience. And every day I dwell on the irony that I am stuck driving an energy wasting car 12,000 miles per year and I am trying to develop the ideas for a low energy low CO2 reorganization.
So I see the General Transportation File System as a brilliant data structure that makes an expanded world of transportation solutions. The late bus update schemes are interesting problems that can be worked out. I had noticed the bus scheduling application in Google Maps but I wasn't able to figure out how to write programs that accessed that data, and I wasn't able to prototype a data structure like it.
I think the GTFS should be enhanced by using the electronic bridge toll sensor devices in cars to make transportation node maps for people commuting. Suppose you set up a bridge toll sensor at the entrance to a Junior College Campus with 2000 cars commuting daily. If you could get 1/3 of the commuters to pick up two students on the way to school...you could cut the gross CO2 emissions by about 50%.
What a great benefit... use existing transportation technology and get CO2 emission reductions of substantial scale with no capital investment.
http://lessco2essay.blogspot.com/
Too bad you live somewhere where there is no public transit you mean.
That or too bad his situation isn't such that he can just up and move his whole family.
That is the fault of city planners and people who choose to live in those places.
Not everybody has the luxury of being free to choose where to live.
New passengers are typically unfamiliar with locations around towns or unfamiliar with the local bus schedule
How should new passengers deal with the 36 to 60 hour layovers that are common in places like Fort Wayne, Indiana? There are no buses from roughly 6 PM Saturday evening to 6 AM Monday morning, or 6 AM Tuesday morning if Sunday or Monday is a major holiday.
I'd submit that driving to the beach is much more convenient for the beginning of the trip (just hop in and go versus waiting around for the bus to show up)
Especially when it'd be more than a 24 hour wait because a particular city doesn't run buses at all on a given day.
Humans rely on an advertising company to organize their public transport? That's it. I'm heading back to Mars. I've seen enough.
It took about 4 years to get our new development on the map. I never had any joy getting the other companies to add it. Then I think Google added a different tool for reporting errors and when I reported it to them again I actually got a response back essentially saying you're right and we're going to fix it. Within a month or so it was on the map.
When Google does shady things there are infinite excuses made by the fanbois.
Google provides all these things for free, for anyone to use, and many are benefiting from it
But still you insist that it's a shady thang !!
How kewl izzat ??
I've tried Google's public transport option a few times, but it's given bad plans. I don't know if they don't have good enough data, or if their algorithms aren't tuned to working in a city with so many frequent services as London, but the official route planner is much better -- and covers everything in London, which is enough for most people in London. Google's is very keen to switch from the Underground to buses -- it forgets that it takes much longer to get from the deep-underground platforms of the London Underground, crammed with people, out onto the street (which exit?), to the bus stop (which side of the road? which stop?) than to walk to a different platform for a different line. It's also optimistic with journey times during rush hour -- buses are often slowed by traffic/people, trains aren't much affected.
Also, when service frequency varies, it's most useful to know "take bus 23, buses are every 10 minutes" than "take bus 23 at 08:23". I've been approached by tourists concerned that there was no London Underground train at 20:42. Well, no, but there was one at 20:40, and another at 20:43.
Many European cities, and many elsewhere, have a single website with a routeplanner for that city. I expect many, many people still use these websites rather than Google.
and gypsies? because that is about the only thing that would make me consider public transportation
I barely tolerate DC metro just because smelling bums is just slightly better than DC driving and parking, I couldn't imagine getting on a bus with the kinds of people I see waiting at bus stops
on the plus side I personally witnessed 3 times an attractive and successful african american being arrested and led off in handcuffs for eating on the train
so it has the entertainment factor going there
Too bad the route takes 3.5 hours instead of 49 minutes driving
The problem... well stated. The fundamental maths of current public transport technologies mean that they can physically never replace the car in terms of performance. You could spend trillions on it and it would still suck so badly that nobody uses it. (This is what Europe does)
There are technologies out there where the maths do add up (PRT) and which can outperform cars, but they would replace existing public transport systems which have lobbyists, unions, huge subsidies, decades of waste ec. Egos would be bruised and we can't have that.
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Looking at the example image, I see a next bus, I see some "scheduled" times and that's it.
If I look at a stop in Korea, I see live times of all the buses, I can click an individual route to see when the next 2 buses are (which tells me their current stop, how many stops away they are and the expected arrival time), I can further click to see an entire route list of all stops and see the general position of every single bus on the route as well as which ones are low floor buses.
This was basically all put together by a 17 year old Korean kid while he was in school, but hey, good job Google!
I remember when I first started reading slashdot around 5 years ago there were several stories about public transportation agencies in several cities suing people to stop them from distributing easy to use digital versions of their schedules. These lawsuits were for the most part successful. In those cases where the public transportation agency lost their suit, my recollection is that they changed the way they did their scheduling to make the private scheduling services fail. This was roundly condemned here on slashdot (rightly so), although it had a few defenders.
My point is, how much quicker would we have had something like this, and how much better would it already be, if we hadn't had to wait for somebody as big as Google to start doing it for the public transportation authorities to start cooperating with it?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
After trying to use Google Maps and/or the Phoenix Metro time schedule when I took my son on the Phoenix Metro Light Rail (which he absolutely loves riding), I gave up and just scraped the data and wrote my own application (iOS app and Android app). The biggest issue I had was that the schedule data is badly done. They only have the times for half the stations (14 out of 28), so I had to interpolate for the remaining stations and call it good enough
That is quite possible. In my area, there was no single planner. NJTransit had tiny pieces of the NYC subway system and the PATH but that was about as far as it went.
I believe the spec does allow for adding frequency into the data (I see "train runs every 0 minutes" a lot) but I think that agencies are not using it.
Agreed one place Google doesn't do as well is major transport centers where it's a variable amount of time to get in and out the door. In New York Penn Station, Google always gives a ridiculous amount of time (like 15 mins minimum) even though it really doesn't take that long if you know where you're going. However, for most of these high-frequency situations, what you really need is the route anyway.
So you're saying he never chose where to live? C'mon.
Nevermind :). I just tried routing from the closest train station to a place I used to take a bus to, and it has me walking the whole way :)
So you're saying he never chose where to live?
Yes. Sometimes that's chosen for one by one's circumstances. For example, I feel reluctant to move because I have no support network of friends and family outside my home town, even for a ride home should I end up stranded after public transit has stopped running for the day or for the week.
Choosing where to live does not have to mean choosing what country or state to live in. Most people I know do not look AT ALL at public transportation before they move, even in the same area... and then sometime down the road say they don't use public transportation because it doesn't go where they live. I could live somewhere within 20 mins of here that is not well served by transit... but I didn't.
Currently, Google Maps Transit Directions doesn't take fares into account, and doesn't allow you to prioritize or ignore certain systems. This leads to, for example, Amtrak's fast but expensive trains always taking priority over NJ Transit trains, making the service useless for looking up NJT schedules wherever the two overlap.
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Spot on. That's exactly how it works here in Lisbon. You head to here and you get your route. Now if only the coordination between services was any good...