3 ms·
There are so many ways that IT could improve existing public transportation. When I was in the Boston area I wished for a service that would text me in the mor
by danielweber 12y ago
There are so many ways that IT could improve existing public transportation. When I was in the Boston area I wished for a service that would text me in the morning and say the next inbound trains are M,N,P minutes away. Depending on N I could stroll to the station or hustle to make it on time.
Even when I'm in a top-20 city (instead of a top-5), I could still be persuaded to take the bus if IT systems make it easy and convenient.
- incision 12y ago>'...if IT systems make it easy and convenient.' Believe it or not, there are people working for these systems who are both willing and capable of making that happen. Unfortunately, there's a trump card of paranoid ass-covering which routinely squashes such aspirations: Terrorism I worked with a transit agency was not just capable of sending texts, but had a surprisingly slick mobile-ready, web app for displaying realtime, animated schedules in 2008. Someone got up in a meeting and said 'What if terrorists use that information?' Today, six years later they don't have so much as a reliable API available to the public.
- furyg3 12y agoI wonder: If we would have known terrorists would target subway systems in the future, would we have abandoned their construction?
- jghn 12y agoThe MBTA does this these days although its main use is w/ the busses, where it has been a godsend. Since the bus tracking apps arrived busses went from something I actively avoided taking to using all the time to navigate the spokes in the system for exactly the reason you state. I can watch from my computer or phone until just before a bus is coming in and hurry on out to the stop.