As Gordon Price points out, unfortunately, despite holding a bloody press conference for it, Google Transit’s launch in Vancouver has barely made the presses. It was mentioned on 24 Hours and News1130, but none of the major media that showed up, including CTV and CBC, made a story out of it. Which is rather unfortunate, but it’s great for independent media like blogs, which have covered the announcement, and the product.

As has been explained in other places, the collaboration between TransLink and Google to bring our transit information onto the Google Transit Feed Specification, and furthermore onto Google Maps, is a boon for all. TransLink specifically tried to boast about Google Transit’s accessibility features, for the blind, but also for people who don’t necessarily use transit but could, like tourists.

When I first heard about Google Transit, I was ecstatic, because I get that way with new things that are super cool. And it’s awesome that it’s finally in Vancouver. It’s fantastic that, apparently, someone from TransLink somehow approached Google and got this collaboration off the ground (perhaps an employee at TransLink had a little 20% time of his/her own?).

It’s not a revolution however. There’s still a big place for TransLink’s own trip planner. I think I’ll be using it over Google Transit, simply because it’s more flexible, and I can do things like, enter a specific route. Google has never been the best at user interfaces, and while TransLink isn’t one to speak either, I understand that it’s difficult for Google to fit all the bells and whistles of a transit trip planner into the Google Maps interface. Google Transit, to me, is about bringing the information to a larger audience, which is fantastic.

One funny little thing about Google Transit though is it places transit trips times directly beside driving times, which are always faster, many times to a great degree of difference.

There’s to be a few improvements soon, which I am particularly looking forward to. This includes individual bus stops and SkyTrain stations icons being placed on the maps with next bus info, and some real time information for the next bus (i.e. if a bus is late, it would give a real time estimate of arrival, rather than a set schedule time). The real time integration depends on one thing though, and that is ITS, which is a whole other post.
I am disappointed that fare information has not yet been integrated, which would allow a price to be placed next to the route you’ve made. From there, a calculation can be processed which would compare the price of transit next to the price of driving. The features above, and this gas cost one, are already integrated in other cities like Portland, Oregon, and it’d be great to see them in Vancouver. Even better would be if TransLink stays an active innovator with Google, and introduces new features as they are released.

Finally, as Google’s presenter Joe Hughes mentioned at the press release, it is imperative for improved transit and creative innovation for TransLink to make the GTFS information available to the public. One very cool service, TextBus, which currently relies on scrapped schedule information from TransLink’s website, would become far more reliable if it had access to Vancouver’s GTFS info. It is likely that other cool services such as TextBus would pop up, which just makes transit a better experience for all.

Good on TransLink for started the beginning of, what I hope will be a great relationship with Google. It’s a small, but important step to improving transit in the Lower Mainland. It’s frankly not something I thought would happen anytime soon, especially with the transportation authority in it’s current state of limbo, and goes to show that there are some very creative and smart people working there.