PowerPoint Presentation
Open Public Transit Data in the ACT
Alexander [email protected]
Outline
Outline the problem and some of the history behind open transit
data
Explore in greater detail some of the challenges and benefits of
having open transit data
Demonstrate one real open source application of open transit
data in the ACT
Problem
All good solutions come from scratching an itch
Catch the bus everywhere but going somewhere new or at an
unusual time is really hard
Even if I know what stop I want to board at, can't print out a
timetable for that stop from the website, you can only see it at
the stop and only for some stops (not the one near my house!).
Obvious Solution: Developing a whole timetable and route
planning app
What is open public transit data
Electronic timetables and routes
GTFS
Text files of Routes/Stops/Trips
Combine into zip file on website
Next Gen: Real-time network information (vehicle location,
network status/faults)
Web services/APIs usually
Passenger volumes/trips data
Privacy implications for trips
For Google Maps HAS to be on a globallyaccessiblewebsite. So
making it open is a political not technical issue
History
2006Google begins developing Google Maps for Transit.
GIRO (the developer of the HASTUS bus scheduling system ACTION
uses) announces native exports direct to the google data format
[?]
ACTION budget cuts; dissolved as statutory authority and merged
with TAMS/Urban Services [?]
2007Google Maps for Transit data format renamed General Transit
Feed Service to reflect changing of communityNot just data
management tools but alternative traveller facing applications.
History
2008First documented request for ACTION data [?]
2009Google says by June, June comes and goes [?]
Same old form letter about it's coming [?]"Insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again but expecting different
results."
OpenTripPlanner unifies 5 open-source projects to make a unified
turnkey trip planner
2010Nothing from ACTION except some new network updates.
History
2011
Uni students make "prototype" app over their summer break and
present it to ACTION
Denied any collaboration for "Political reasons"?
Goto media!
Risks of open data being embarrassing? Being on the radio, 2
evening news programs, local newspapers for being mean to kids is
even more embarrassing.
Finally after days of media scrutiny, a TAMS spokesperson claims
data is bad. But "promise" they'll release Google Transit again by
June 2011
So then the politicians get involved. ACT Greens are going to
FOI raw data no matter what the current state is and have asked
Chief Minister to get advice on "releasing it for use in open
source applications.
How bad is the data?
North Lynehamham
City Interchange (Platform 9)City Bus Station Platfrom 9
Black Moutain- Telstra Tower
Yarrulumla
Tharwa / KnokeTharwa / Pocket
North Lyneham
City Bus Station (Platform 9)
Black Mountain Telstra Tower
Yarralumla
Tharwa Drive / Pockett Ave
May seem minor but to a computer the names have to be exactly
the same for every route
(a distance of 2.778km as the bird flies in 4 minutes = flying
at 40km/h. Reasonable bus route of 3.734km = 56km/h)
Not just about bad timetabling data
August 2010 report identifies TAMS/Roads ACT says 2950 stops,
ACTION says 4652 stops [?]
Roads sends maintenance plan to ACTION to check, gets all clear.
By February 2011 already accidentally spent over $5000 on improving
benches/concrete where no buses even stop.[?]
Worth noting community identified that one stop was actually
used.
Fear and Loathing in Risk Adverse Cultures
Clearly data quality isn't the issueBad but not useless
How could you be worried about what downstream developers do
when your own website, timetables and internal information systems
are wrong?
The embarrassment of the data quality is the issue.
Organisational Context
"Both TAMS and ACTION have confirmed that corporate systems,
governance and capability in the business have been somewhat
compromised over the past three to four years[since the
reorganisation]." [?]
ACTION fails to maintain all sorts of private data; keeping
records of bus maintenance checks, keeping records of cancelled
services, keeping records on accidents, keeping records on
complaints, keeping records on failed ticket machines and
subsequent lost revenue
Data improvement efforts
You're not MEANT to get it right the first time. GTFS usage is
based around iterative improvements.
Why not give it to the community to fix?
OpenStreetMappers already have quite a number of suburbs covered
with bus stops at greater accuracy than anything ACTION provides to
the public.
Applications of Open Public Transit Data
Route planners *are* a better user experienceBus patronage rises
where people who already take buses for commuting are confident
about how to get from A to B at other times.
New patrons know immediately how to change buses in
hub-and-spoke system.
UniversIty of Washington Seattle case study shows 90%+ of
smartphone owners that use trip planners feel more satisfied by
public transport, safer, wait less time and take more travels after
the launch of mobile app with trip planner! [?]
Anyway, asside from the doom and gloom of reality. The
benefits!
Not just route planners!
Better website and printed/pdf timetables
"Haven't needed a #Canberra bus in so long I'd forgotten how
much ACTION's web site is stuck in 1997."
http://twitter.com/projectgus/status/35472831991123968
"Dear Action.act.gov.au. You fail. You fail at everything. You
fail as a website, as a bus service... as everything."
http://twitter.com/emslibbles/status/37468000114184192
"LOL was looking at Action bus site today as car booked for
service tomoz. What a state of #1996 Abyssmal in fact."
http://twitter.com/zuzu/status/37443590363807744
Better Website/Timetables
Modern web standards might be a little hard; currently network
updates are entered using dreamweaver!
If they were generated rather than marked up by hand, would
always be consistent and reflect the "shift cards" aka directions
given to bus drivers out of the HASTUS system
No more ambiguity about edge case routes like 39 (no last stop
on northbourne) or 81 (school holidays only) or
Xpresso/Rapid/Limited Stops services
Better (or any) Mobile Apps
- Latest review of ACTION specifically says 'establishment of
iphone [sic] applications for the ACTION timetable, and provision
of real time information at bus stops on expected arrivals;'
[?]
Demand for just getting the timetables in a handheld device
sized formatUnofficial Android and iPhone apps out now
Although, that expectation is quickly being dwarfed by the call
for real time information
Better (or any) Mobile Apps
-eg. Network Management from OneBusAway
http://www.youtube.com/user/onebusaway- Adjusting/patching the GTFS
data in real time to disable certain trips/routes/stops or divert
them
Better (or any) Mobile Apps
- Too high tech? A suggestion seen on the internet:
"They could start by using Twitter to announce scheduled
services that are unable to run, or when buses have broken down
mid-route. Twitter is free, and would only take 30 seconds to type
in the memo that is already verbally distributed to drivers via
two-way." [?]Already someone from community runs @ACTIONBusses to
distribute announcements from website. @ACTPol_Traffic and
@TAMSmediaroom providing traffic incident and road closure
information.
Better mobile information access
Website is hard to use on a mobile device and very data
heavy.
Better mobile information access
Promised online route planner won't solve problem of timetables
where I already know where I want to go and needs consistent/costly
data connectivity- Imagine Team already offer that for Android,
some paid iPhone apps around with offline functionality
Better Accessiblity
- just as the websites fail at mobile formfactors, they are
horrible for screen
readershttp://wave.webaim.org/report?view=textonly&url=https://www.action.act.gov.au/Routes_101001/Route_6.htm-
Don't mean some arbitrary "oh you missed one alt tag". There are
real roadblocks to the spirit ofaccessibilityeven if some of the
WCAG2 priorties arefulfilled.Like no anchor tags on the timetables;
hard to navigate on mobile, hard to access generally.Or no skip to
content to get around the sidebar.
Better Accessiblity
Better Large Print Timetables
- The "Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport
2002" even explains that "that the provision of information at bus
stops does not mean that material should not be available
elsewhere." http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Series/F2005B01059- The
standard for large print is "18 point sans serif characters."-
ACTION failed their lastaccessiblyaudit in this respect "ACTION did
not provide adequate relevant and accessible information including
large print options and route maps on bus stops"- Existing
timetables could become even more confusing if simply enlarged-
Opening this data could easily produce on-demand custom large print
timetables- At the high-tech end, there's an area of research into
Travel Assistant Devices that can take in GTFS and GPS location to
say when to get on/off the bus!
http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/03/25/metro-magazine-travel-software-to-aid-disabled-riders/
Better Community Engagement
- Externalising the cost of innovation - ACTION is always
running at a loss, no budget for experimentation
- What if the next generation of mobile devices can do something
better? Altered reality glasses?- Even current generation devices;
there are many different opinions on the best mobile app, don't
lock yourself into Google when you can have the local IT community
try.- Or innovating in the field of public transit applications;
the realtime transit data innovation is coming more from small
agile groups working for one or two agencies than the huge legacy
transport network management software makers- Education is ACT
largest export; plenty of fresh minds not just in ICT but
Management/Commerce that could study different aspects- Data
mashups that show best areas to live for public transport or best
place for 2 people to meet: http://www.mapnificent.net/perth/
Better Accountablity
Okay, not a good case for the Transit Authority
- Imagine Team seem to have accidently hinted at it with their
late bus tracking. - But Accountablity does happen. - Yarra trams
use their real time data to produce monthly performance reports on
service
- NSW RTA is "open-ish". Their GTFS is CC-BY 3.0 with "You must
not use the Data in any way that could create false or misleading
outcomes or interpretations, or bring the RTA into ridicule or
disrepute."
http://www.data.nsw.gov.au/files/apps4nsw_RTA_bus_arrival_data_licence_CC-BY-NC-ND.PDF
Better Accountablity
- FixMyTransitSystem: busses that don't come on time (or don't
come at all), busses that are overcrowded, busses with broken
ticket machines resulting in free rides, busses with broken air
con, bus stops with inadequate facilities- ACTION isn't keeping
good open records on these things and I'm sure they wouldn't be
happy when someone starts doing it in a domain they can't
control
Better Accountablity
- Optimizing a better transit system; is the transfer time in
the ACT appropriate by world standards, are the stops in the right
places
- Manual analysis by auditors already indicates that the stops
aren't in the right places- Planning rules say no residential
property more than 500m from a bus stop, not always followed- Some
newer suburbs have 100m spacing, some older suburbs have 400m.-
"Clustering" where the 2 or so routes that service the same suburb
aren't spaced out so if you miss one, you've missed the other!-
Annecdotal evidence that recent networks favor northside over
southside (or vice versa!) Is there any political
motivation/influence?
My Mobile App Platform
10 months of development: would be alot less with a data
import... but now have intimate knowledge of the intricacies of
network!
Built own database by drawing on sources like NearMap and
OpenStreetMap as well as visiting bus stops and stations
120 routes (Suburban and Intertown Express/"Rapid" services, not
School services though)
263 route variants (weekend/saturday/sunday timetable, different
directions)
220 timing points (landmarks, intersections, shopping centers,
schools/universities)
49 spelling mistakes/duplications
1659 possible stop locationsCould be double that in actual
stops; one for each side of the road!
102 suburbs, 578 streets
834 point-to-point routes
A->B, B->A, B->C on routes X,Y,Z etc.
Based on Halifax case - first do it with a bike and a GPS and
eventually you'll get the real data!
Data cleansing and management workflow
- Correct spelling mistakes- Locate/fix/merge timing points-
Add/remove/move stops- Reverse geocode stop locations into streets
and suburbs- String together stops into routes
The last step took the longest to provide instruction for but if
real open data came out, it could be merged here and still build on
the corrections made.
Timetable access/generation platform
- Turns the text files into objects which can then be accessed
by a websiteWhat routes service this stop? What stops are near this
point?
Based on the Google provided python library and example
webapp
- As a bonus, it does some validation on the input files eg.
routes that go too fast for a bus so the data must be wrong- There
are better libraries and platforms out there like OneBusAway but
this one is easy to modify and resource cheap at the expense of
performance - A lot of customisation about making the right queries
for the views I want to present.
Route planner platform
Basically: Calculates the shortest path between two points
- OpenTripPlanner- Has some bonus features; calculates a couple
of options, walking stage of travel included in overall route,
transfer time/distance considered, preferring less transfers over
fastest/shortest route
Mobile Interface
- Provides access to backend services.- Cross-platform- Does let
you access it from desktop PCs too!
Mobile Interface
- Context aware- Adaptive degeneration- Goes from modern Webkit
smartphones to ancient html proxying devices
Mobile Interface
Geolocation and TimeTaking advantage of as much information as
possible
Access route planner
OTP doesn't have a geocoder yet, use the Cloudmade/OSM one
Format turn directions into maps and words
Access bus stops/routes/streets/suburbs
Mobile Interface
- Different perspectives/dimensions to the existing data-
Quickly filters the overwhelming amount of information to that
which is relevant to mobile users
Conc.
Great potential for open transit data in ACT in the coming
months!- Data on verge of officially being released, if not
community will just hack it together- Lots of mobile devices- Lots
more data potentially coming out of new ticketing system- Community
interest both in using and developing- ACTION has limited
resources; unlikely that they can carry the responsibility of
effectively using data themselves
