Bojangles

This script continually monitors the PVTA bus departures realtime feed for issues.

First in config, create a config.json file according to the config.json.example file, and a database.json file according to database.json.example.

You also need to create a user and a database to match, there are a number of ways to configure this, but this should work:

CREATE USER 'bojangles'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'SomePassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON bojangles.* TO 'bojangles'@'localhost';
CREATE DATABASE bojangles CHARACTER SET = 'utf8mb4' COLLATE = 'utf8mb4_general_ci';

With Bundler and the correct Ruby installed, run:

bundle exec rake REINITIALIZE=true bojangles:prepare

to initialize the process. Then, begin monitoring with:

bundle exec whenever -w

To clear the entry from the crontab file:

bundle exec whenever -c

For more information, see the whenever docs.

You can also test the process as you like with:

bundle exec rake bojangles:run

How does it work?

In short, bojangles compares cached GTFS departure data which we obtain from PVTA to the real-time departure feed which serves data to many other services, including BusInfoBoard and PVTrack. It then sends email notifications to report on any discrepancies it finds.

What assumptions does it make?

Click here.