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Google Maps now has schedules for 1 million public transit stops
- barista 14y agoSo long OneBusAway....
- sadga 14y agoGoogle has had Seattle bus schedules for years, and OneBusAway has tracking, not schedules. Schedules are useless.
- zheng 14y agoI wouldn't say schedules are useless, they are actually pretty helpful to humans (e.g. the bus is scheduled for 5:13, but in rush hour that means it will probably be there closer to 5:20). Tracking is clearly more helpful if available, however. As an aside, thanks to the GP for showing me OneBusAway, it's exactly what I've been looking for!
- akldfgj 14y agoA bus 7 minutes late during rush hour, that's funny. During rush hour, bus arrival times are randomly distributed between 7 minutes late and "so late that you could say the next bus was 1 minutes early" (Any later and you just can't prove whether the bus that arrived was 30 minutes late, or the previous bus was abducted by aliens)
- joelcarranza 14y agoSchedules are not useless, but they are alot easier. While alot of agencies are publishing their schedule information in GTFS, very few agencies are publishing their real-time information in the GTFS-realtime format.
- pyoung 14y agoIt depends on the transit system. MUNI (San Francisco's transit system) buses are horribly off schedule during rush hours, to the point where if you rely on them, you often end up waiting longer than if you randomly show up at your stop. Tracking is really the only reliable method for this. Compare this to BART, where the trains are almost always on time, or within 1 minute of the schedule.
- randomfool 14y agoSpecifically, Google Maps tells me that the 2 bus is arriving at 10:30AM. OneBusAway tells me that it's running 8 minutes late and will arrive at 10:38AM.
- adgar 14y agoSchedules might be useless in Seattle, but the subway schedules in NYC are incredibly useful. Keep in mind that you are not all the users in the world.
- akldfgj 14y agoOneBusAway is a Seattle product. GP was posting about OneBusAway. Keep in mind that you are not all the users in the world.
- untog 14y agoAlso a key play in Google Now. From my office I automatically get a card for the bus stop located outside- I switched it off because I don't use that stop, but I'm interested to see how close I have to get to the subway for it to work.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoThe HN title is misleading. According to the article, Google Maps hit a milestone of 1 million public transit stops, Google didn't recently add 1 million stops.
- jemfinch 14y agoThat's exactly what the title says. It doesn't say Google has one million more public transit stops.
- ashbrahma 14y agoSamuel_Michon was right. I fixed the title after he pointed it out.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoThanks!
- pkulak 14y agoI find it interesting that Apple is adding driving navigation with no transit or bicycle directions (apart from third-party apps) while Google seems to be really putting a lot of effort into public transit. This is all while car ownership is plummeting among youth, the people who I thought were Apple's core user base.
- jonknee 14y agoThis stuff is hard, Google has been doing it for years. Apple is just getting started.
- salman89 14y agoI think its more an issue of platform maturity. Google has years on Apple in terms of building up these data sources. Apple (I believe) will be licensing map data, whose cost is not cheap. Google uses mostly their own maps, and have spent years and $$$ building data.
- _delirium 14y agoA good portion of the transit data is open; Google defined a transit-route data format (GTFS) and encouraged agencies to publish such data publicly, which a number did: http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFeeds http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFe... I'd guess they might also have private arrangements with additional agencies, but a good amount of the data is available to anyone.
- salman89 14y agoFair point. But having said data is only the first step. Routing and directions based on the data is another. That list looks really short though.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoWith iOS 6, Apple released Transit APIs that let third party devs (read: public transit providers) add public transit data themselves. “The new Transit APIs, referred to by Scott Forstall at 108:58 in Monday's keynote, allow developers to register their app as a directions provider for routing directions for a particular set of coordinates. It will then be displayed in the list of available third-party apps for transit. Clicking a transit app launches that app, passing the start and end values to the app. Contrary to other analysis, transit routes can't be displayed inline from the Maps app.” This seems to me like a clever move, this way Apple won't have to collect all the data. http://waxy.org/2012/06/busting_the_ios_6_transit_map_myths/ http://waxy.org/2012/06/busting_the_ios_6_transit_map_myths/
- salman89 14y agoIt would be nice if Google opened this up in some API, but having an API for this doesn't really align with their goals.
- HaloZero 14y agoI believe there are also strict deals that don't let it share certain public transit directions with other companies. Not every transit agency tracking is public and wants their information publicly available for free. I think that's a bigger factor than not having it align to their goals.
- yellowbkpk 14y agoBy creating the GTFS file format and convincing dozens of municipalities to use it, they basically did create an API. Except the transit organizations are running it and Google's using it to draw people into their products.
- salman89 14y agoThis is not an API. An API would be a service that takes these feeds in, parses it, and makes it easily query able by different factors.
- chrisbroadfoot 14y agoAPIs are hard. You need to give it time.
- paulgb 14y agoAs _delerium posted above, much of the data is publically available thanks to Google. http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFeeds http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFe...
- chrisbroadfoot 14y agoWe recently added support for transit directions in the Javascript API. So, if your site uses the Google Maps API, you can add directions to your existing map: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/reference#TravelMode https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...
- Matt_Cutts 14y agoNote that Google's transit directions were a true 20% project when it launched in 2005: https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/bwFAz9KZye2 https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/bwFAz9KZ... When it launched, it was all 20%-ers working on it.
- akldfgj 14y agoWill we ever see a 20% project like this again? Remember these days? http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-message-launches-gmail.html http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-message-... "(Google requires engineers to spend a day a week on projects that interest them, unrelated to their day jobs). " -- Google Press Release
- tokenadult 14y agoThe submitted blog post from Google says, "Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to make a comprehensive resource for millions of riders to find out which bus, train, subway or tram can take them to their next destination." And I will note for the record that in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where the transit provider is Metro Transit, Google Maps has been for at least two years a BETTER interface for looking up transit trips with easier usability than the Metro Transit website. I have discovered many interesting public transportation connections between unlikely places at unlikely hours of the day by searching Google Maps for my trips. The bicycle information is also unmatched, and very helpful in the number-one bicycling city in the United States. http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m... On 8 October 2010, I had a very gratifying reply from the Google Maps team after reporting a problem with many of the Google Maps bicycling directions in Minneapolis: "Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We'll update the map soon and email you when you can see the change. "Report history "Problem ID: A12D-84A0-3A9F-A05E "Your report: Many biking directions to locations on the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota from suburban locations west of Minneapolis mistakenly go across the Mississippi River to the East Bank campus, even when the correct destination address is entered to select the bike route." I was glad they fixed the problem, and especially glad about the friendly way their follow-up was communicated to me. It is this kind of response to a user error report that makes me eager to tell friends about Google Maps and leads me to tend to forget that there are still other companies in the geographical information business. Similarly, after I made a couple of suggestions to Google, it seems that Google has systematically improved its once APPALLING mapping of youth soccer fields in Minnesota, crucial for me as the parent of three "travel" soccer players.
- mitchty 14y agoMetro Transits site is a horrid abomination. Just wonder how long until iOS gets the google-ified google maps that has all the transit information.
- crazygringo 14y agoSo why can't they show the routes for bus lines??? Clicking on a metro station in lots of cities will draw colored lines of all the metro stations that pass through it. E.g., Times Square: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=type:transit_station:%22Times+Sq+-+42+St%22&t=h&ie=UTF8&hl=en&view=map&ftid=0x89c259ab49ca241b:0xb22a3843c5b03c10&ftt=5140&geocode=FVrgbQIdWQqX-w&split=0&sll=40.755290,-73.987495&sspn=0.000000,0.000000&iwloc=A&ved=0CBQQpQY&sa=X&ei=RBosUNbmFuWSxQHa4YGYAw https://maps.google.com/maps?q=type:transit_station:%22Times... But this doesn't work for bus routes, which would be 1000x more useful. Because, with a metro, you can look at a metro map and easily figure out which lines pass through the station -- there are usually only 1, 2, or maybe 3. But in a lot of cities across the world, there might be 30 bus lines that stop at an intersection, and printed maps don't even exist of the bus lines because there are just too many to draw. But Google could show the 30 bus lines instantly, so you could actually see how they fan out the further away you get, and you can easily figure out which of the 30 buses, if any, go to your desired neighborhood. I've been waiting for this feature for YEARS... and it still doesn't exist. :(
- chris24 14y agoIt must depend on the data they're given. I can see bus lines in Toronto, but not in Waterloo, ON, for example.
- ajb 14y agoThis is cool, but I can't help thinking that it's unambitious, for Google. Let's imagine: The product is not called 'Google Transit', but 'Google Teleport'. It is an auction-based system, like adwords. You click where you want to be, instantly a variety of costed journey options are listed, each of which can include segments using anything from walking to taxis to public transport to international flights. Google takes it seriously as a product, because it generates revenue. Over time, the system allows new, cheaper, faster, more energy-efficient transport options develop, such as minibus-taxis, which pick up and drop multiple passengers whose routes coincide. Well, it's nice to dream. I think that it will happen eventually, probably as an outgrowth of one of the taxi-based startups.
- lindablus 14y agoI live in SF, and it's great to see the schedules on google maps, but the estimated time for arrival is off as of now.
- packetslave 14y agoPossibly because the last time SF public transportation was running on-time was in 1972.
- cuchosan 14y agoTo achieve this, Google has introduced the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) format [1] which is becoming the preferred way to publish transit data. Hundreds of transit agencies around the world are publishing their GTFS feeds, enabling many hackers around the world to make applications that consume this data and improve users' travel experience. [1] https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference