Comments on: hbus.ca and thoughts about crowdsourcing http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/ Tue, 25 May 2010 03:48:21 -0300 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Ginger Tea and Channa Masala » Creating a google transit feed for fun and profit http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-18 Ginger Tea and Channa Masala » Creating a google transit feed for fun and profit Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:40:50 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-18 [...] does make me wonder if I shouldn’t reconsider the option of crowd sourcing, which I had rejected [...] [...] does make me wonder if I shouldn’t reconsider the option of crowd sourcing, which I had rejected [...]

]]> By: Logan Attwood http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Logan Attwood Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:09:18 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-12 Well, hrm has a fair bit of GIS data available - including all the bus stops and their go times (but you'd have to manually call them to get which busses are there) http://maps.halifax.ca/ExploreHRM/viewer.php Well, hrm has a fair bit of GIS data available – including all the bus stops and their go times (but you’d have to manually call them to get which busses are there)
http://maps.halifax.ca/ExploreHRM/viewer.php

]]> By: hbus, the transit day tripper | CREST Halifax http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-11 hbus, the transit day tripper | CREST Halifax Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:54:13 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-11 [...] hbus.ca and thoughts about crowdsourcing Filed under: hbus — wlach @ 3:10 pm [...] [...] hbus.ca and thoughts about crowdsourcing Filed under: hbus — wlach @ 3:10 pm [...]

]]> By: realyst http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-10 realyst Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:02:06 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-10 I feel your pain in regards to getting Metro to release their bloody info. Got hung up on twice, had three people not return my call and even had a rep say that "no one knows where that stuff is kept". I envisioned a small Commodore 64 in a closet somewhere running GoTime and many things started making sense. I then tried scraping the metro transit schedules, but their horrid PDF formatting makes that damn near impossible. I fully support your efforts(you beat me to it, but according to the story, you started about 3 years before me, bah!) and am happy someone is taking the initiative where I ran out of time. I still have the domain I registered in lieu of my attempt if you want it(gometran.com). Just reach out to me via email if you do(not like I'm using it). I feel your pain in regards to getting Metro to release their bloody info. Got hung up on twice, had three people not return my call and even had a rep say that “no one knows where that stuff is kept”.

I envisioned a small Commodore 64 in a closet somewhere running GoTime and many things started making sense.

I then tried scraping the metro transit schedules, but their horrid PDF formatting makes that damn near impossible.

I fully support your efforts(you beat me to it, but according to the story, you started about 3 years before me, bah!) and am happy someone is taking the initiative where I ran out of time.

I still have the domain I registered in lieu of my attempt if you want it(gometran.com). Just reach out to me via email if you do(not like I’m using it).

]]> By: wlach http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-9 wlach Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:54:54 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-9 Very interesting idea. Have you seen http://myttc.ca? They have a wiki around all the transit data in their planner, so you can add comments like this. Unfortunately you still need to navigate to other pages in the site to get access to this information -- it would be cool to have alerts associated with specific routes that show up right in the planner. :) Very interesting idea. Have you seen http://myttc.ca? They have a wiki around all the transit data in their planner, so you can add comments like this. Unfortunately you still need to navigate to other pages in the site to get access to this information — it would be cool to have alerts associated with specific routes that show up right in the planner. :)

]]> By: Jody http://masalalabs.ca/2009/03/hbusca-and-thoughts-about-crowdsourcing/comment-page-1/#comment-7 Jody Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:38:35 +0000 http://masalalabs.ca/?p=17#comment-7 Congratulations on your launch! Looks great! One idea I had for transit sites (which may be a way to differentiate hbus.ca from Google Transit - if you're successful with your efforts to get data out of Metro Transit, you'll all of a sudden have competition) your is that there should be a way to comment on routes, and rate them. The UI and logic for this will be a bit hard - if you can't filter out irrelevant information, people will ignore it - but I can think of a few ways that might work... The use case is: sure, there are bus routes that are scheduled to go from A to B at certain times. But will that actually be useful to you? Let's say you're at a hotel in downtown SF on a Sunday afternoon and want to go to the Haight: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=1231+Market+St+San+Francisco,+CA+94103,+United+States&daddr=Haight+St+%26+Ashbury+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94117,+USA&geocode=&hl=en&mra=cc&dirflg=r&sll=37.77727,-122.427129&sspn=0.035209,0.064716&ie=UTF8&ll=37.783571,-122.410483&spn=0.017603,0.032358&z=15&start=0 Great! I can take the 71, or if I miss it there's the 6, and so on. Right? Well, Robin and I tried this a few months ago and no, it's wrong. We ended up waiting at the stop for 20 minutes. A 71 finally showed up but it was full. 10 minutes later we asked a local and he told us the correct answer, which was to go downstairs to the streetcar stop below and take the N streetcar to Cole Street, a 5 minute walk away. A truly useful transit system would have given me a way to know this... or to know that the 105 bus from Robin's to Vendôme is late and often full during rush hour, so budget an extra 10 minutes or just walk. And so on. Just a thought :) Congratulations on your launch! Looks great!

One idea I had for transit sites (which may be a way to differentiate hbus.ca from Google Transit – if you’re successful with your efforts to get data out of Metro Transit, you’ll all of a sudden have competition) your is that there should be a way to comment on routes, and rate them.

The UI and logic for this will be a bit hard – if you can’t filter out irrelevant information, people will ignore it – but I can think of a few ways that might work…

The use case is: sure, there are bus routes that are scheduled to go from A to B at certain times. But will that actually be useful to you? Let’s say you’re at a hotel in downtown SF on a Sunday afternoon and want to go to the Haight:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=1231+Market+St+San+Francisco,+CA+94103,+United+States&daddr=Haight+St+%26+Ashbury+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94117,+USA&geocode=&hl=en&mra=cc&dirflg=r&sll=37.77727,-122.427129&sspn=0.035209,0.064716&ie=UTF8&ll=37.783571,-122.410483&spn=0.017603,0.032358&z=15&start=0

Great! I can take the 71, or if I miss it there’s the 6, and so on. Right?

Well, Robin and I tried this a few months ago and no, it’s wrong. We ended up waiting at the stop for 20 minutes. A 71 finally showed up but it was full. 10 minutes later we asked a local and he told us the correct answer, which was to go downstairs to the streetcar stop below and take the N streetcar to Cole Street, a 5 minute walk away.

A truly useful transit system would have given me a way to know this… or to know that the 105 bus from Robin’s to Vendôme is late and often full during rush hour, so budget an extra 10 minutes or just walk. And so on.

Just a thought :)

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