- Lame format. There should be repeated tags, rather than a comma delimited list inside a single tag. - @harryh
- ha, i know... (someone called this out in class too). but hey, take what you can get!
ps: harryh hates fun!
Not to nerd out, but this is the future. BART (SF subway) opened all their data to developers... which means anyone can build apps that help people Miss Trains Less Often. Here's an XML feed of what trains are arriving when: (feed updates every 60 sec)
... basically this is the type of data that drives the signs you see on the L train ("Next Train: 25 minutes"). Now imagine building this into an iPhone app or something so whenever you are standing over a subway station (GPS!) the phone can tell you whether it's worth going in and paying the $2 (vs. you sitting around waiting 45 mins for the next train).... or your phone buzzing with an SMS before you leave your apt for work / airport/ night out letting you know the F train is on fire / delayed 20 minutes / etc
Unfortunately, I don't think the MTA has this type of data for all their trains, but this is where the space is going. Awesome, eh?
More info on BART's API here:
www.bart.gov/schedules/developers/
(btw, I even love the casual language they use to explain how the API works. Well done, BART)
Comments and faves
dpstyles™ (43 months ago | reply)
FYI - the closest thing we have in NYC is this *brand new* MTA Twitter Bot: twitter.com/nyc_mta
Far behind BART, but definitely a step in the right direction.
@WillMcD (43 months ago | reply)
this is interesting. Good post. how did you find this?
Chelsa Skees (43 months ago | reply)
I am signed up for the MTA email alerts (you can also do text messages) which i assume is pretty much the same thing as the twitter bot but for those of us that have not fallen the the depths of all that is Twitter.
You can also personalize what trains you get the alerts for on the MTA site.
This is a great post, I love the L train's system and wish there were better systems for more train lines.
@je. (43 months ago | reply)
We put this together for Austin and it's been quite popular (based on time tables)
www.me2bus.com
The webapp includes a crawler (PDF reader) that alerts admins when data has changed. We did NYC buses too. Hopefully more transit orgs will provide feeds soon, like SF
dpstyles™ (43 months ago | reply)
Related: mini Flickr post on the L-train "Next train in..." system
flickr.com/photos/dpstyles/2741051771/
And, as far as I know, these are *real-time* train arrivals (not scraped-from-the-PDF-schedule times). If I'm wrong about this, please correct me.
rshaw and lhl added this photo to their favorites.
antlered (43 months ago | reply)
dude this is crying out for you to make this
antlered added this photo to her favorites. (43 months ago)
antlered (43 months ago | reply)
also i reposted you, hope you don't mind: antleredlife.com/2008/12/03/not-to-nerd-out-b ut-this-is-t...
dpstyles™ (43 months ago | reply)
@ anterred, i will burn down your plagiarizing, re-bloggin' website if i ever do find it! (now go get yer snowboard boots!)
antlered (43 months ago | reply)
i will smoke you on the lift betch!