Hello dansd:
I have done further searching for real-time online transit schedule
(adherance) data. I'm afraid that what I've found may not be
particularly encouraging for whatever application you are planning....
Basically, only a small percentage (< 1%) of centers in the U.S. have
an online real-time transit system *at all*. Those that do have it:
* don't use the same data formats/conventions
* don't appear to provide this data "raw" to the public or companies
(at least there's no mention of such access).
The most authoritative source I was able to find for online transit
information was Transitweb, from the U.S. Department of
Transportation:
Transitweb - A Website Design and Traveler Information Resource for
Transit Agencies
URL: http://www.transitweb.its.dot.gov/Introduction.asp
They have a compete listing of all transit websites in the country. I
went to their search by "Website Feature" page:
URL: http://www.transitweb.its.dot.gov/Search_Features.asp
and chose "Search Sites By Specific Features" then chose "Real-time
Information". The result of the search was that only *10* locations in
the entire U.S. have and use such real-time data.
* Regional Transportation District (RTD) - Denver, Boulder, and
Longmont, CO - Demand Response, Light Rail, Motorbus
* Central Coast Area Transit (CCAT) - San Luis Obispo, CA - Motorbus
* New Hyannis Transportation Center (The Breeze) - Cape Cod, MA -
Demand Response, Motorbus, Trolley
* Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA), Burlington, VT - Motorbus
* Westmoreland Transit - Greensburg, PA - Demand Response, Motorbus
* Stanford University Marguerite Shuttle - Stanford, CA - Demand
response, Motorbus
* Glendale Beeline - Glendale, CA - Demand Response, Motorbus
* Doylestown Dart - Doylestown, PA - Motorbus
* King County Metro - Seattle, WA - Demand Response, Motorbus, Light
Rail, Trolleybus, Vanpool
* Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle - Washington, DC - Motorbus
(If you do the actual search yourself, you will get links to each of
these systems as well.)
These sites include all the ones I had found independently before I
got to the DOT site. Honestly, none of these sites seems to have a
very "rich" data set from which they are working....
Transitweb also did a National Summary of online transit site
features, and "Real-time information" was listed as only being
available on 1% of existing sites (and how many places don't have
sites at all?!).
National Summary: This table summarizes website features and frequency
of occurance for all transit agency sites reviewed.
URL: http://www.transitweb.its.dot.gov/Result_Nation.asp
While this news may be discouraging, at least I was able to find that
there are agencies trying to tackle some of the important issues of
standardization between transit data systems so that - in the future -
systems can communicate with each other:
National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol
URL: http://ntcip.org/
There are companies that are tackling the issues of providing transit
systems with the technologies they need to gather and disseminate
real-time transit information:
NextBus
URL: http://www.nextbus.com/corporate/index.htm
DART First State Launches Leading Edge Real-Time "NextBus" Info and
Satellite-Based AVL Bus Locator Systems to Aid Transit Rider
Convenience and Safety
URL: http://www.dartfirststate.com/news/nextbus.html
However, these companies do little or nothing to see that *every*
transit system provides interoperable data. (Of course, they'd love to
sell every transit system their products, thereby creating a de facto
standard - the old Microsoft trick - but that may be VERY wishful
thinking.)
Another paper I found that might be of interest:
The Use of Wireless Internet Service to Access Real-Time Transit Information
URL: http://www.its.washington.edu/pubs/wc02-mybus.pdf
So, overall I'd have to say that access to online raw data for transit
systems is lightyears behind similar systems for general road/highway
traffic arteries. My personal opinion is that it might take the larger
North American transit system and the technology companies that
service it at least 5 - 10 years to get to the place where
road/highway traffic systems currently are, with respect to raw data
compatibility and accesibility.
I hope that you can use this information to make your proposed service
even better and that it doesn't put too large a crimp in your plans.
Search Strategy (on Google):
* "real time" "traffic data
* "real time" "traffic data" raw
* traffic "data feed"
* TrafficCast
* trafficcast traffic data
* trafficcast competitors
* "real time" subway bus train
* "real time" subways busses trains
* "real time" transit data
* NextBus Information Systems
+ a host of searches on companies that didn't pan out
websearcher |
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