Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, June 14, 2011
Transportation OneBusAway Might Go Away
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 9:38 AM
Prepare to return to the Dark Ages of Seattle's dismal bus service:
Hi. We've not been properly introduced. My name is Brian and I'm the creator of OneBusAway. I'm a bus rider just like you and I started OneBusAway almost three years ago with the simple goal of making it easier to ride the bus. I'm also a grad student at UW getting my PhD in computer science. I managed to convince my advisors a while back to let me work on OneBusAway as part of my graduate research and things have been going well ever since.Brian is going to work for Google. Google rules the universe. Our fate is now in the stars. Is Seattle Bus Finder still running? I thank the gods that I now depend on dependable Light Rail. Thanks to Carole Triem for the bus tip.Perhaps too well: there are now over fifty thousand of you using OneBusAway every week. That's an amazing number of riders for a grad student project. Of course, the trouble with grad students is that we sometimes actually graduate. Assuming my defense goes well a week from Thursday, that'll be my trouble too. The big question then is, "What's next?"
4
Actually Google recently announced real time bus and other transit updates.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/0…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/0…
Google announced today on its blog that real time mass transit data is now available for free to users of Google Maps for mobile and also desktop. It isn't a big pool of transit providers Google is drawing from initially, but if you live in the regions of Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid and Turin, you'll now be able to actually know when your bus arrives, as opposed to the regular scheduled time.
6
Nooooooooo!!!! These have been the easiest years of my bus riding life. Metro needs to acquire OBA.
10
Seattlest still exists? Why?
If only OneBusAway would combine with the route-searching thing that Metro has, so you can not only find out when your particular bus is actually arriving, you can also find out which bus to take to get where you're going. I sometimes find myself stranded in odd parts of the city where I have no idea where to go. "Downtown" is usually but not always the right answer. It'd be nice to have an easy way to find out. Hint: DON'T LET METRO WRITE IT.
It would also be nice if T-Mobile's supposed 4G service could (a) load a OneBusAway map in less than five minutes and (b) correctly identify my position via GPS within five blocks, but that's not really OBA's problem, I guess.
If only OneBusAway would combine with the route-searching thing that Metro has, so you can not only find out when your particular bus is actually arriving, you can also find out which bus to take to get where you're going. I sometimes find myself stranded in odd parts of the city where I have no idea where to go. "Downtown" is usually but not always the right answer. It'd be nice to have an easy way to find out. Hint: DON'T LET METRO WRITE IT.
It would also be nice if T-Mobile's supposed 4G service could (a) load a OneBusAway map in less than five minutes and (b) correctly identify my position via GPS within five blocks, but that's not really OBA's problem, I guess.
11
@4: and how many OBA users live in the regions of Boston, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid, or Turin?
12
There's nothing to be worried about. It's not going away and the program is open source. There's no reason it would disappear.
13
Charles: to repeat from the blog post you linked to, but failed to mention:
"OneBusAway is NOT abandoning Seattle"
"OneBusAway is NOT abandoning Seattle"
14
@11 Kind of salt in the wound that not only is Seattle being passed over in the pilot, but Google is also giving the grad student who has been filling that civic role something better ($) to do.
15
I ride 5 buses a day and it already drives me crazy that they're always late, but without OBA I will for reals buy a scooter.
16
Fnarf, a simple interface to the metro trip planner can sometimes help to quickly determine which bus to take. Here's one: http://www.spotbus.com/
17
Okay, it might not be going away or abandoning Seattle, but what's going to happen to it once this guy leaves? Who's going to update it or fix problems?
18
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
OBA is the only way bus riding is actually tolerable. It will tell you how delayed your bus is, and when its arriving. It's the best thing to happen to King County Metro. I wonder how much ridership will go down if the OBA program lapses.
OBA is the only way bus riding is actually tolerable. It will tell you how delayed your bus is, and when its arriving. It's the best thing to happen to King County Metro. I wonder how much ridership will go down if the OBA program lapses.
19
@16, thank you! My nefarious plan to flush out a solution worked! Now, if only the thing loaded in less than ten minutes....
20
@9, "And before I leave for Google this summer, I'm doing everything I can to make sure Puget Sound transit agencies are putting their best foot forward in terms of providing the data that powers services like OneBusAway and Google Transit." If this is the sound of certainty to you, we have different opinions about what certainty sounds like.
22
It sounds like he knows that certainty is an impossibility. That's the most accurate statement he can make without claiming something he knows could be false.
He's going into the transit division at Google, so it's likely he will be working on the Seattle part of the Google Maps transit interface.
He's going into the transit division at Google, so it's likely he will be working on the Seattle part of the Google Maps transit interface.
23
Whoever continues OBA development should have a look at PDXBus, which is the best transit app for TriMet, and steal some features. I loved OBAs maps, PDXBus destroyed it in terms of trip planning usability. That may be because of TriMet's commitment to data sharing, or it may be the developer, but I used both, and I have to give the edge to PDXBus.
24
@15: my problem isn't the late bus...it's the damn buses that are early. And not just a minute or two early, but as much as five minutes early and making no effort to slow up and get on schedule. A late bus I can cope with as that's beyond the driver's control, but running ahead of schedule is inexcusable.
25
@10 to spite you.
We had a meeting and decided that was a good enough reason.
@22 for most insightful retweet.
We had a meeting and decided that was a good enough reason.
@22 for most insightful retweet.
26
OneBusAway is all well and good, but who here still mourns the loss of Seattle Bus Monster? THAT website was Far and Away the best bus-tracker around. Google's Transit stuff is a pale, weak comparison to what SeattleBusMonster once was.
You could click on a bus stop, find the routes, then click on the route # you were interested in, and the entire bus route would light up, indicating exactly where the bus went, and it also - of course - had indicators where the current buses were. You could select multiple routes and visually figure out which was the best combo to take to get you anywhere. It was truly great information design.
If I remember correctly, GoogleMaps changed their API, and the brain behind Seattle Bus Monster, Chris Smoak, also graduated or got interested in other things. But that was 2006.
Never since then have I found a better bus-transit interface. Including OBA.
The last vestige of Seattle Bus Monster---> Bus Monster blog
I'd like to see Google or Metro revive THAT.
You could click on a bus stop, find the routes, then click on the route # you were interested in, and the entire bus route would light up, indicating exactly where the bus went, and it also - of course - had indicators where the current buses were. You could select multiple routes and visually figure out which was the best combo to take to get you anywhere. It was truly great information design.
If I remember correctly, GoogleMaps changed their API, and the brain behind Seattle Bus Monster, Chris Smoak, also graduated or got interested in other things. But that was 2006.
Never since then have I found a better bus-transit interface. Including OBA.
The last vestige of Seattle Bus Monster---> Bus Monster blog
I'd like to see Google or Metro revive THAT.
28
@26 - we've had a handful of "unofficial" bus trackers down here—some great —as well that have all since been locked out (to the best of my knowledge). In their place is something called "Nextbus" that says thing like "next N Judah in 35 minutes" about 2 minutes before one pulls up.
30
@28, that's the one that displays in the bus shelters, right? When I was in SF last, it was laughably wrong, always. "Arriving in 5 minutes" followed by "Arriving in 0 minutes" followed by "Arriving in 30 minutes" = no bus.
31
@30 - I'm pretty sure the info for the Nextbus site and what they run in the shelters is the same. "Laughable wrong" is probably the most positive spin you could put on it. It's insane, since hobbyist developer have already shown accurate GPS bus tracking is possible. I'm starting to wonder if inaccurate bus prediction is some twisted Homeland Security mandate.
Oddly, in the underground shelters, they display the real-time location of every underground train. Naturally, it's usually out-of-order, but at least it's not wrong.
Oddly, in the underground shelters, they display the real-time location of every underground train. Naturally, it's usually out-of-order, but at least it's not wrong.
33
KC Metro's schedule information is pitiful. The automated system is difficult to use and some aspects of it are totally confusing. Many stops don't even exist on metro's automated system. If you opt to speak to a metro live person half the time your call goes to fast busy. OneBusAway is a great system and pretty much just works 98% of the time either for phone (456-0609) or through the smartphone app.
34
Did you read the post you linked to???
It in fact says OBA is NOT going to abandon Seattle.
You guys are pitiful.
It in fact says OBA is NOT going to abandon Seattle.
You guys are pitiful.
35
I got around SF just fine with Google Maps transit directions and the Android app Muni Alert, same as here in Seattle with Maps and OneBusAway. I like having my stops saved as shortcuts on my phone. I'm glad Brian is gonna continue improving transit services for users in his real job, and that he's gonna keep OneBusAway running until something better comes along to replace it.
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