Never Missing the Train Again • Hacker News Board

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#141

Post by dgemm » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 6:17 PM UTC

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…

I'd be curious if you have any insight on why the tracking apps for buses are so inaccurate - OneBusAway but also Google maps and the others. The estimates are often off in one way or another and sometimes a bus just doesn't show up at all. I assume the problem is with the source data but I'd be curious if you have insight into just what causes it to be so unreliable. I'm in Seattle FWIW

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#142

Post by Fargren » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

nox101 wrote: post #82

inejge wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm not understanding the use case. I don't want to "take the train". The use case is routine. A lot of people, most of the time, do indeed want to "take the train". Heroic feats of real-time planning have their place, and it's great to have tools that help you with that, but routine can be covered with much simpler tools just as well. Even in the Tokyo scenario you gave (which is fascinating -- thank you!) G…

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…

I would find this slightly useful, I live in Madrid. For most of my trips I take the metro; I have two lines nearby, and they are frequent enough that I just show up. But there are a few parts of town that are just not well connected to my place by metro. If I want to go to Atocha, Cibeles or Piramides, the bus is better. But I have three buses that take me to each of those places, and they show up every 25 minutes. If I'm going there, I want to know which stop will have a bus soonest.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#143

Post by danhor » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 9:22 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #124

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…

I feel like the OP is overcomplicating the solution, I don't own a car and all commuting is basically either: - bus/train/tram crosses my stop 5 times a day - its trivial to learn the 5 times - bus/train/tram crosses my stop more than 5 times a day - i just show up at the stop and wait Perhaps my point of view is like this because I'm in Europe, I can't tell really.

Even though most times my train comes every 15 Minutes (and in other places even every 5), I still check for: Disruptions and I try to catch the train exactly. I often get on the platform a minute before the train departs and rarely miss it.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#144

Post by nohup2 » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 4:12 PM UTC

Fargren wrote: post #142

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…

I would find this slightly useful, I live in Madrid. For most of my trips I take the metro; I have two lines nearby, and they are frequent enough that I just show up. But there are a few parts of town that are just not well connected to my place by metro. If I want to go to Atocha, Cibeles or Piramides, the bus is better. But I have three buses that take me to each of those places, and they show up every 25 minutes.…

I also live in Madrid. Many years ago, wrote a bash script that downloaded the real time data for the bus stop nearest to home from the EMT website and read out loud the minutes for the next bus with festival. We had a keyboard next to the couch, many keys were shortcuts to execute commands like that one. So it was a matter of pushing a key and listening.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#145

Post by mjlee » Mon, Oct 28, 2024, 10:27 AM 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…

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#146

Post by iggldiggl » Mon, Oct 28, 2024, 10:35 AM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #124

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…

I feel like the OP is overcomplicating the solution, I don't own a car and all commuting is basically either: - bus/train/tram crosses my stop 5 times a day - its trivial to learn the 5 times - bus/train/tram crosses my stop more than 5 times a day - i just show up at the stop and wait Perhaps my point of view is like this because I'm in Europe, I can't tell really.

Are you sure you didn't mean 5 times per hour? Turn up and go for a six times a day service seems a bit optimistic :-)

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#147

Post by parl_match » Mon, Oct 28, 2024, 8:40 PM UTC

mattegan wrote: post #73

parl_match wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I found having something physical and on the wall and always present _really_ helpful. When the train/bus comes every 15 minutes, being able to casually look and see if you should make a dash for it is way better than pulling out your phone, bringing up an app, and entering your destination.

Plugging my own project here [1] for SF's Muni to say I 100% agree with you - the phone is a trap! There's something so charming about having a thing you know you can look at anytime and __no matter what__ it's doing exactly what you expect it to be doing. [1]: https://github.com/mattegan/muniscreen

thats a cool project!

i would kill for the transit app experience, with an eink display, and battery measured in weeks