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MTA Releases Subway Time App

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Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#31

Post by inmygarage »

crazygringo wrote: post #29

The fact this information is finally out there is fantastic. But for God's sake, if this is the case: “The existence of this sleek digital interface barely hints at the investment that had to be made in terms of hardware and infrastructure to make this enormous public benefit a reality,” Why is this literally the worst app I've ever used? A weird old pixellated icon, non-retina bitmapped user interface elements, scro…

I live in NYC and have been following the city's technology initiatives closely. The silver lining here is that the city has come to terms with the fact that they are le suck at making awesomely designed consumer apps, and releasing the data to the public will be beneficial for all. My favorite part of this post is the "Commitment to Open Data".

Someone out there will make something amazing with this data, it's practically inevitable.

Speaking of, if you live in NYC you should come to this Reinvent Payphones Hackathon - same sentiment (full disclosure, my startup is helping to organize): http://reinventpayphones.prototypehackday.com/

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#32

Post by chimeracoder »

danso wrote: post #17
jason_adleberg wrote: post #15

Except that there's never any reception in subway stops, no?

So for the trains on which they have real-time data, there are already LED-boards that show arrival time: http://i.imgur.com/QzgGr.jpg If you're on the platform, you'll be able to see the time even if your phone isn't working. So the mobile app will be useful if you're en route to the station and need to know how many minutes you have left.

Man, I've heard horror stories of the L, but 25.5 hours is ridiculous.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#33

Post by schackbrian »

hammerdr wrote: post #28

I love that Chicago's CTA believes in a much more open development model: http://www.transitchicago.com/apps/ http://www.transitchicago.com/developers/default.aspx More data: https://www.metrochicagodata.org/ https://data.cityofchicago.org/ It's all a part of Chicago's OpenGov work and its incredible how much data and work is out there. Here's a list of apps that people made in a city-sponsored competition: http://ww…

"The MTA is challenging software developers to use MTA data to create new apps that improve the transit experience of its 8.5 million daily riders." http://mtaappquest.com/

"New York City challenged software developers to create apps that use city data to make NYC better." http://2011.nycbigapps.com/

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#34

Post by jrockway »

crazygringo wrote: post #29

The fact this information is finally out there is fantastic. But for God's sake, if this is the case: “The existence of this sleek digital interface barely hints at the investment that had to be made in terms of hardware and infrastructure to make this enormous public benefit a reality,” Why is this literally the worst app I've ever used? A weird old pixellated icon, non-retina bitmapped user interface elements, scro…

The availability of arrival times is just a side effect of the infrastructure upgrades. The real reason for upgrading the infrastructure was to be able to run trains closer together.

Also, iPhone development is more difficult in real life than in your imagination. It should be easy to wrap a nice interface around a protobuf, but it's actually a rather tedious process.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#35

Post by josegonzalez »

chimeracoder wrote: post #32
danso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for the trains on which they have real-time data, there are already LED-boards that show arrival time: http://i.imgur.com/QzgGr.jpg If you're on the platform, you'll be able to see the time even if your phone isn't working. So the mobile app will be useful if you're en route to the station and need to know how many minutes you have left.

Man, I've heard horror stories of the L, but 25.5 hours is ridiculous.

You're thinking about the G train.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#37

Post by michaelhoffman »

crazygringo wrote: post #29

The fact this information is finally out there is fantastic. But for God's sake, if this is the case: “The existence of this sleek digital interface barely hints at the investment that had to be made in terms of hardware and infrastructure to make this enormous public benefit a reality,” Why is this literally the worst app I've ever used? A weird old pixellated icon, non-retina bitmapped user interface elements, scro…

> Why is this literally the worst app I've ever used?

I've used apps that have worse interfaces and don't do anything useful.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#38

Post by natejenkins »

danso wrote: post #17
jason_adleberg wrote: post #15

Except that there's never any reception in subway stops, no?

So for the trains on which they have real-time data, there are already LED-boards that show arrival time: http://i.imgur.com/QzgGr.jpg If you're on the platform, you'll be able to see the time even if your phone isn't working. So the mobile app will be useful if you're en route to the station and need to know how many minutes you have left.

I was always amazed that the arrival boards are not available at every subway stop. In 1912 I could understand, but in 2012 this seems ridiculous.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#39

Post by gpvos »

danso wrote: post #13
potatolicious wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " First of all, the main problem for New Yorkers is the lack of this data for all the other train lines (i.e A-Z)." Unfortunately this is not going to be fixed any time soon. BMT/IND trains have a distributed command and control system. Multiple signal towers control train movement within their own sectors of the system - and each signal tower has no information about the rest of the system. This was necessary in t…

Let's assume that there's a byzantine system in which two parallel and unconnected systems control both BMT/IND trains...at some point, each train communicates arrival and destination data to its respective system. Why can't both systems report to a single controller? At some point, this information is centralized (dear God I hope it is, especially for evaluating performance metrics)...I can't see how it would be har…

For starters: there's no electronics involved. It's all relays and stuff.

Re: MTA Releases Subway Time App

#40

Post by timjahn »

danso wrote: post #17
jason_adleberg wrote: post #15

Except that there's never any reception in subway stops, no?

So for the trains on which they have real-time data, there are already LED-boards that show arrival time: http://i.imgur.com/QzgGr.jpg If you're on the platform, you'll be able to see the time even if your phone isn't working. So the mobile app will be useful if you're en route to the station and need to know how many minutes you have left.

So the next train comes in an hour, and the one after that comes in a day?!

I'll stop complaining the next time the L is a few minutes late. Yeesh.

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