Adding RideOn Buses, Trip Planner?

[linz47]

I learned about your app on PoPville a few months ago. I find it really user friendly if you know where you need to pick up a bus. Any chance you might add a trip planner (how would I go from X to Y?)?

I'd also love to see Maryland's RideOn bus system added to this map. The Takoma station, for example, has one side of MetroBuses and the RideOn side is empty. Unlike Metro, RideOn sticks to its timetables by the minute so I think it would provide some useful and quality data to your app. If RideOn were added, I'd be able to use this app daily (and would pay/donate for it!)

Thanks again for taking the time to make this! Awesome job so far :-)

[j-ro]

Thanks Linz47!

The trip planner has been requested before. Indeed, it's issue #21. That said, it's a really biiiiiig feature -- I'm not even sure how I'd go about it, really, given the data I have access to. But if I can figure it out, it would be great to add.

I'll research RideOn, too. I'm just about done adding the Circulator, so I need a new system to add. If RideOn publishes their data in similar formats to Circulator or the Metro system, I'm sure adding it wouldn't be too hard.

[linz47]

Thanks for your incredibly fast reply! I know Metro has a trip planner - even just linking to that through the app would be helpful to have everything in one place. Or Google maps? They have a transit feature now. But if you're going to wrangle with a trip planner, I hope you'd make the app paid instead of free for your own sanity :-)

RideOn numbers their stops similar to metro, so that might help in terms of data crunching. Here's some RideOn info--hope it helps! Home page: http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/tsvtmpl.asp?url=/content/dot/transit/index.asp RideOn Real Time: http://rideonrealtime.com/ *RideOn timetables: http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/tsvtmpl.asp?url=/content/DOT/transit/routesandschedules/rideonroutes.asp

Good luck, and thanks again! -Lindsey

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 7:36 AM, Jason Rosenbaum notifications@github.comwrote:

Thanks Linz47!

The trip planner has been requested before. Indeed, it's issue #21https://github.com/j-ro/WheresTheBusDC/issues/21. That said, it's a really biiiiiig feature -- I'm not even sure how I'd go about it, really, given the data I have access to. But if I can figure it out, it would be great to add.

I'll research RideOn, too. I'm just about done adding the Circulator, so I need a new system to add. If RideOn publishes their data in similar formats to Circulator or the Metro system, I'm sure adding it wouldn't be too hard.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/j-ro/WheresTheBusDC/issues/42#issuecomment-17390001 .

[j-ro]

Thanks!

The issue is a programmatically accessible interface. So Metro provides a trip planner, but not via its API where I get all the other data. Plus, for a trip planner to really work, I'd want it to integrate all the systems, a la Google Maps. Maybe the solution here is to allow folks to enter destinations and current locations and then send them to google maps to actually do the trip planning. Not sure if that's possible, but seems the way to go perhaps, rather than trying to rewrite a full trip planner.

Re: RideOn, it seems they may offer data in a way I'd need: http://rideonrealtime.net/

But I'm having trouble finding the documentation. I'll keep digging!

[linz47]

I don't think this would be helpful ( http://rideonrealtime.com/HelpFiles/DefaultHelpen-US.htm), so I'd suggest emailing the website contact to ask for what you're looking for: margaret.boume@montgomerycountymd.gov.

You can let them know that you're attempting to fulfill a request of a Montgomery County resident? Maybe that will butter them up :-)

-L

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 7:44 AM, Jason Rosenbaum notifications@github.comwrote:

Thanks!

The issue is a programmatically accessible interface. So Metro provides a trip planner, but not via its API where I get all the other data. Plus, for a trip planner to really work, I'd want it to integrate all the systems, a la Google Maps. Maybe the solution here is to allow folks to enter destinations and current locations and then send them to google maps to actually do the trip planning. Not sure if that's possible, but seems the way to go perhaps, rather than trying to rewrite a full trip planner.

Re: RideOn, it seems they may offer data in a way I'd need: http://rideonrealtime.net/

But I'm having trouble finding the documentation. I'll keep digging!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/j-ro/WheresTheBusDC/issues/42#issuecomment-17390236 .

[j-ro]

Alright, I emailed them! We'll see.