The importance of proper schedule information
Posted on February 5th, 2008 in rants, surrey, technology, transportation, vancouver |
Schedule info has screwed me multiple times. I’ve ended up missing the last bus on a route, standing in the rainsnow for 30 minutes without an umbrella, and walking a good 20 minutes along the route just to have something to do. All because I tried to relied on sources other than TransLink’s official schedule system - through both Google Transit and MyBus.
Now, it’s understandable that MyBus’s info may be off - they have to scrape TransLink’s website to get the times, and depending on if that system is working at all - it can really be off. That problem has to do with TransLink not making the info available for free to private developers.
But Google Transit should be a whole different story. TransLink worked side by side with Google engineers (AFAIK) to get the product off the ground, and all schedule information that is provided through GTransit is updated manually by TransLink. So here, when something is off it’s all TransLink’s fault.
With GTransit, I’ve encountered some problems. My regular stop features two routes - sometimes the routes times would be the opposite - meaning that the 320 I was told to catch at 4:50 is actually the 341, and the 320 came at 4:41. Sometimes, the map won’t even show any information at all! (I’m talking here about clicking on individual bus stops on the map, not creating travel info).
Today, I was searching up schedule information at all three places, and once again, I’m faced with three different scenarios. How the hell am I, as a transit rider, supposed to figure out when to even catch the friggin bus with a situation like this?!
MyBus:
TransLink’s NextBus:
Google Transit:
6 Responses
That’s brutal. I think that, when all is said and done, it’s fine and dandy to have lots of ways to access information - but to have it centrally available and *accurate* at its core, is at least as important, if not more so, than being able to access it through multiple avenues. The problem of not having an API is not something a frontend can fix; and I doubt this is the sort of thing TransLink will be able to fix quickly, if their data’s been locked into a proprietary vendor format that all their processes are built around.
Sadness all around. :(
I agree that the information should be consistent. In GT when I click on the plus to expand the box, I see that the information is there, just not displayed in the contracted box for some reason. If you go to any other Google Transit city, such as Seattle or Portland, it is exactly the same. Clearly the problem is with Google Transit globally. Hopefully they are working on it.
Yeah, transit information has screwed me a few times.
On a happier note, Happy Early Birthday!
Apologies for the empty bubble thing, that’s a UI bug that the Google folks are working on.
Can you provide any current examples of where Google Maps is giving you different information from the TransLink site?
Translink sucks in every way possible.
I’m getting a car for a reason.
Hrmm… I’ve used Google Transit a few times now and haven’t encountered any problems. I guess I’ll keep an eye out for jumbled schedule times from now on though.