Never Missing the Train Again • Hacker News Board

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#111

Post by throwaway290 » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 11:12 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #104

nox101 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

never met that person. as someone that has long lived in cities with amazing transportation (sf is not one of those with good transportation) there are too many options and people always want whatever is best now, not routine. you're out drinking - which mode is last. you're on the east side of X, which route is closest. you're tired, does any route guauntee a seat. etc.... Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Ky…

> never met that person. Hello! Now you have. In many cities certain parts of the transit network follow a star / hub-and-spoke layout. The station nearest to my house is on a spoke, and has trains going south and those going north. So for me, an in-home train display only really needs to show the next train in each direction. And a lot of transit decisions are conditional on things the planning app doesn't know. Am…

> Combine that with the fact that the multimodal transit apps don't understand fares

Kakao Maps will give you exact timing and fares for every mode except air

> In many cities certain parts of the transit network follow a star / hub-and-spoke layout

Yeah those who live on a spoke and mostly go back and forth that spoke are a minority because the farthter away from the center the more space between the spokes:)

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#112

Post by RicoElectrico » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 11:43 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #56

RicoElectrico wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one, it's called the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, but due to the small volume and the target audience largely being not-my-own-money (think educational institutions), the price is quite detached from the production cost.

Arduino-compatible devices based on ESP32 are plenty powerful enough at a fraction of the cost.

CPU is indeed beefy for a small wi-fi chip, but the small RAM hurts. Yeah, there's QSPI PSRAM but the bandwidth is lacking as well.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#113

Post by pstadler » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 11:58 AM UTC

philipwhiuk wrote: post #48

If you're in the UK you can buy a depature board that mimics a station departure board: https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/store/product/desktop-depart...

There's a Swiss equivalent of it mimicking tram boards:

https://tramli.ch/en

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#114

Post by Hnrobert42 » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:01 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #92

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #67

n.b. I'm the executive director of the non-profit behind OneBusAway, which is an open source project used by millions of people every day to find out where their buses, trains, trams, and funiculars are, and when they'll be arriving. If you live in a city that already has a OneBusAway server[1], you can use one of our brand new SDKs to build your own custom app experience: https://github.com/onebusAway/?q=sdk&type=al…

If you live in a city that already has a OneBusAway server How do you find a list of places it's deployed. I tried Googling "onebusaway cities" which got me this page https://onebusaway.org/onebusaway-deployments/ but that doesn't list cities like Adelaide that you mention.

See the footnote in GP's comment.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#115

Post by Hnrobert42 » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:10 PM UTC

Given the post's title, I hoped it would work with trains. In Washington, DC, it works with buses but not trains. What help would you need to make it work with trains?

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#116

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:29 PM UTC

avhception wrote: post #86

I'm kind of surprised that no one in here seems to have mentioned https://oeffi.schildbach.de/index.html so far. It does exactly what seems to be wanted here.

There are a bunch of things that do broadly this, though largely not on a kindle on a wall, of course :)

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#117

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:32 PM UTC

culopatin wrote: post #58

Animats wrote: post #54

BART and MUNI both support the General Transit Feed Specification.[1] There's a standard way to obtain this data. [1] https://gtfs.org/documentation/overview/#gtfs-realtime

Do you know how reliable is the realtime info? I find that Google maps very often says “bus coming in 4 min” as im watching the bus drive away. Or “delayed by 5 min” and it’s early by 2, etc.

IME Google's realtime data in many places isn't very good; even where it _claims_ to have realtime data (there's a little radio symbol beside the bus), it sometimes disagrees with both the local operator's own realtime data, and, well, consensus reality.

> Or “delayed by 5 min” and it’s early by 2, etc.

This, in particular, you can never really trust, especially for buses, no matter who's telling you it. If a bus is delayed 5 minutes, and has the opportunity to make up the time, it will. If a bus is delayed by five minutes, but there's no-one at the next five stops and no-one wants to get off there, it may well be on time by the time it gets to the next stop. In many bus systems, buses will sometimes just stop to avoid getting too far _ahead_ of schedule, though.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#118

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:40 PM UTC

nox101 wrote: post #71

Maybe I'm not understanding the use case. I don't want to "take the train". I want to get from A to B. If the train is broken, the workers are on strike, the route is blocked between 1pm and 4pm, or it's outside of operating hours then I want an alternative. So for me, I actually want what Google Maps gives me (or tries to give me). I do not just want to know about trains. Maybe I want to get from the Ferry Building…

> So for me, I actually want what Google Maps gives me (or tries to give me).

One thing I find is that Google Maps really, really assumes that walking is very very bad and no-one wants to do it. So for instance, if I'm going to a particular place I will get a 39 bus and then walk 15 minutes. If I ask Google how to get there, I'll get a route with two transfers; if the stars align it'll take about as long as one-bus plus walk. So if I want Google to tell me when the 39 bus is coming, I'll have to lie about where I'm going.

(Also, at least where I am Google's realtime data is questionable, with the data from the operator and some other third parties being more reliable.)

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#119

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:44 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #36

pugworthy wrote: post #33

In truth I rarely ever miss a train, a bus, or a plane. They miss me though because they are delayed.

I think travel by bus/train is more friendly when they have "headway". Instead of a specific schedule, there is a bus/train every "n" minutes.

That works when it's high frequency enough. If it's every five minutes, no problem. If it's every 20, this doesn't work quite as well. If it's every hour it's unworkable.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#120

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:50 PM UTC

sourcepluck wrote: post #9

A. "Busses" should be "buses", I think? Or am I stepping into a holy war... Maybe it's a British vs American English thing, but a quick look says that Merriam-Webster agrees. Maybe it's a choice by the author, in which case, fair enough. If I was the author, I'd prefer knowing, anyway. B. Super cool article! I've an old Nook somewhere being neglected which I am now moving up my list of devices to do some messing with…

'Buses' is probably more standard, but 'busses' as a plural noun is common enough that it's probably not worth making a fuss about. The great/terrible thing about English is that there is no central authority; if people use it, it is English.