InsideTransit Archive

Earlier today I wrote about the new MTA real-time bus API which allows developers to pick up real-time locations for two bus routes in NYC. I noted in the post that I was hoping that someone would create a mashup with Google Maps where you can see the bus locations on a map and the map would be in real-time.

Well, it’s no Twitter app…but the live MTA bus tracker is now running! It’s called NYCT Bus Time and has two options: a display that matches the display at the actual bus stops and the live map where you can watch the M16 and M34 buses move along 34th street in Manhattan.

On the live map (static version shown below), you can see each of the bus stops indicated with red dots along with the buses moving along the street. The bus number is also displayed.

Interestingly I wonder if this new live bus tracker will remove the need for the MTA employees that sit around NYC writing down what time a bus reaches a certain stop point.

SEPTA (that’s Philly’s transit system) is also running a demo of their real-time bus tracker.

As many of you know, I am a bus and subway fan – I love public transit. If I ever sold CN, I would focus my blogging efforts on my transit blog, InsideTransit.

I’ve got to give some credit to the NYC MTA team members who have been participating in the New York City subway and bus developer group. The team is very responsive to all of the questions and requests that hit the group from developers looking to build on top of the APIs and other developer offerings from the transit authority.

Today MTA employee Sarah Kaufman has posted some great news…the first real-time API is now available for testing. The API is based on the real-time bus information on the 34th street bus line (that’s routed M16 and M34). The test will run through August 10th and the data stream will be stopped on that date. If you want to use the API, you must request a key by April 19th.

You can learn more about today’s real-time API announcement on the developer forum.

My hope is that someone creates a mashup with Google Maps similar to the Swiss train mashup where you can watch the trains move in real-time.

In the old days, there were two main ways to get anywhere from Boston to Washington using public transit. Those two ways were Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses. Over the past few years, new bus services that travel along the northeast corridor have popped up including Bolt Bus and Megabus. Both of these new bus services offer very inexpensive fares and also offer free Wi-Fi service (Bolt Bus is partially owned by Greyhound). When I speak with entrepreneurs that travel anywhere from Boston to Washington, many have started to use the buses over Amtrak because of the Wi-Fi and the lower cost.

Last week Amtrak announced the launch of Wi-Fi service on their fleet of Acela Express trains.  Acela Express is the luxury, “faster” train service that runs from Boston to Washington and costs a bit more than the traditional Amtrak train service. The new Wi-Fi service is free to all travelers.

The free Wi-Fi service is also available inside the stations that Acela services including NY Penn Station and Washington Union Station. So now we have a new place to use free Wi-Fi in Penn Station!

I wonder how the Acela Wi-Fi handles travel inside the tunnels. It’s great news that Amtrak is finally starting to move forward with technology on their trains. While the announcement notes that there are no firm plans to add Wi-Fi to their other trains, the sooner they add the service, the sooner they could look to potentially taking people off the buses and onto the trains. And frankly, if the service quality is good, Amtrak should charge a small fee for it. If the airlines charge, so should Amtrak.

One of the big topics in the tech sphere of blogging as of late has been privacy. Most of the discussion has revolved around Facebook and how their changed privacy policy allows them to hit the ATM machine more often.

But what about our offline privacy? And what I really mean is when people take media of us from offline and move it online – what happens to our human privacy?

On the show 24 last week, super secret agent Chloe was able to track down a bad guy by tapping into the cameras on the streets and even was able to follow the bad guy, zoom way in, etc. We know cameras by police and other law enforcement groups are everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you are in Times Square, London or a small town in the midwest, chances are cameras are watching your every move. iPhone cameras in Japan are required to beep when taking a photo to prevent upskirt shots.

Last week the Daily News profiled Pete Malachowsky – a guy who rides the N train in NYC like so many others. Malachowskycreated the N Train Gossip Twitter account to highlight his finds – the people who make riding the subway here so much fun. I’ve highlighted a couple of photos below. He adds a bit of snark with each photo. What’s amazing is how close he gets to some of the people he photographs. And now his readers are submitting photos of their own.

Continue reading “Online Privacy? What About Offline-Online Privacy?” »

Last year Google got cozy with the MTA with the launch of transit directions inside of Google Maps. Today the Google Maps team has announced the launch of a new layer on Google Maps that displays all of the NYC subway routes directly on the map. There have been many mashups that created something similar in the past but now the subway lines are displayed directly on the map. So far I haven’t been able to find any errors in the lines and/or stations. I am sure my fellow railfans will find any errors this weekend.

The new subway map lines also work on the mobile version of Google Maps. Google notes that they provide transit directions for 436 transit agencies around the world.

While the subway lines on the map are nice, nothing beats the Swiss Rail mashup that shows the trains in real-time and they actually move on the map!

When you ride the subway, have you ever thought, “boy I’d like to get her on my Twitter”. Or what about, “his tush belongs on my Facebook”. Perhaps, “She would be a great friend for my feed”. But the problem is that it’s hard to go up to someone and tell them about your interests and desires on a train.

There’s a new service that will help you reveal your interests in a man or a woman named SubwayCrush. The service currently serves NYC, London, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. The idea is simple…find someone on the train you are interested in, write up the person’s specs on SubwayCrush and then the person might just answer. Naturally the more people who know about, and use, SubwayCrush, the better chance you have for a match.

You can view all “crushes” by city or by type (e.g m4w, m4m, w4m, w4w). You must enter the rail line you were on when you found your crush — this helps narrow down who it might be. I hear stories all the time about people finding love on the subway. I did a search for “hot male entrepreneur who also runs a tech blog” on a few of the subway lines in NYC but I came up empty.

I am guessing at some point they will add the ability to post photos – which might be a bit creepy. They should also add the ability to signup for alerts based on location and/or subway line.

The service was created by NY-based Lolz.

Over the past year the NYC MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) has been going after Web developers who use schedule data to create applications to help public transportation passengers make better use of the system. As a railfan, I’ve always found this policy absurd. Google has been able to get access to this same data set since the launch of their Google Maps with subway directions last year and HopStop has the data as well.

Michael Grynbaum from the NY Times has a great story today about the progress that’s been made with the MTA in opening up the schedule data. Complaints against two web developers have been dropped. Grynbaum discusses how a variety of cities across the U.S. share their schedule and transit data with the public. Up north, Toronto held a “transit camp” in 2007 to help create a better TTC website.

At the end of the column, there’s a comment from Internet law expert Jonathan Zittrain who noted, “I love that the subversive act of the 21st century in the subway is not graffiti, but mapping out the stations so you can know where to exit the car. Twenty years ago they would have been tagging the cars. In both cases, the city is upset.”

Continue reading “MTA Appears Willing to Work With Web Developers…Finally” »