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Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

trulia.com

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Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#31

Post by shashashasha »

MetalMASK wrote: post #20
shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

Hi Sha, Great work. I checked commuting time for Seattle, WA using public transit and most of your visualization are spot on. Is the public GTFS files you are referring to come from here: http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFe... ? With regard to some of the earlier replies saying that the map is inaccurate, it might be worthwhile to use Amazon Turk to run some evaluation on how reliable the spa…

Sen, that is a great idea. We're definitely trying to get this as accurate as possible (not having a public traffic data source makes this hard), and Turk would go a long way towards answering questions about places we don't have a good sense for (even all these comments are great for us to fine tune our calculations).

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#32

Post by [deleted] »

shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

[deleted]

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#33

Post by lunchbox »

WalkScore has similar functionality (click on "My Commutes"):

http://www.walkscore.com/apartments/CA/San_Francisco

The numbers there are somewhat different.

You can also enter more than one commute location. So you can find all places that are within 20 minutes of your office AND 30 minutes of your girlfriend's house.

The other tabs have some pretty cool filters, such as proximity to public transit, grocery stores, etc.

They also have heatmaps showing how "walkable" a particular neighborhood is, i.e. how much you can get your daily errands done without needing a car:

http://www.walkscore.com/CA/San_Francisco

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#34

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #32
shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#37

Post by pavel_lishin »

elliottcarlson wrote: post #19
shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

Thanks - it actually seems close to accurate for me - though I have an approximate 2 hour commute door to door so it's purely guessing on the remainder of the trip. Will the outer boroughs of NYC receive transportation options as well?

Where do you live and work? 4 hours of commute a day seems ... excessive. (I'm guessing, based on your question, that you work in NYC but live in another state, and probably spend most of those two hours sitting on a train, which would make it less, uh, awful-seeming.)

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#38

Post by waffle_ss »

whalesalad wrote: post #15

This is the most worthless chart I've ever seen. When would this be useful? It's roughly the same everywhere. Before I am downvoted into oblivion... honestly can someone explain to me when they would ever reference this chart? Give me one good example.

Perhaps a bit harsh, but I have to agree on the usefulness factor. Obviously the UI looks excellent, but it doesn't matter because the data is wildly off for both areas that I've commuted and seems to be a widespread issue based on other comments.

They probably should have focused on getting better data before launching. Garbage in, garbage out I guess. I hope they can improve the integrity of the data because it has a lot of potential.

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#40

Post by datasage »

brechin wrote: post #5

I work in Minneapolis and my commute is about 30-40% (15-20 min) less than what this site says. Neat idea, but certainly needs improvement for broad real-world use.

It seems to line up pretty well if you consider it round trip commute time.
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