I was thinking along the same lines for car journeys. A crowd sourced satnav system could better predict congestion but as users you'd have to submit hopefully anonymous data. It could also send a portion of the users one way and send the others an alternative route to spread the load.
I don't know how you could apply the same thinking to public transport. On Tue, Feb 7, 2012, at 12:44 PM, Stephen Booth wrote: > I was wondering if anyone was aware of, or had considered developing, > a way of crowd sourcing route finding (like using Get Directions on > Google Maps). I'm thinking in particular of local journeys where > there might be lots of different potential routes where as there's > only a few reasonable routes to get from say Birmingham to Manchester. > > I'm moving house next week and was checking what routes Google Maps > suggests from where I'll be moving to to places I frequently need to > go. Basically I was checking if there was a better route than the one > I already know (it's the area I grew up in and where my sister already > lives), I found that the routes I already know tended to be a lot > shorter and quicker. That got me thinking that it would be good if > there was a mechanism by which I could tell Google that actually there > was a better route and hence the idea of a route finder site which > crowd sources the routes. > > Essentially what I'm thinking is a site which initially applies a > similar process to Google Maps and similar sites. Users, if they know > a better route, can enter that route (maybe draw it on a map or even > use a FourSquare style app to walk/drive/bus/train the route and check > in at major turning points/changes (e.g. when they get on or off a bus > or train). This could also be used to add timing information to the > route (maybe according to the time table it's supposed to take the bus > 30 minutes to do a journey but actually it tends to take 45, maybe a > distance that would normally take 10 minutes to walk takes 20 because > it involves crossing busy roads &c). The software would then break > the journey into logical lengths (when they leave/join a major road, > reach a landmark (such as a train station, city centre, shopping > centre, hospital, major junction &c), get on or off a train or get on > or off a bus or pass through a stage boundary). When someone requests > a route the software would stitch together these lengths to find the > shortest journey. > > Possible or pipe dream? > > Stephen > > -- > It's better to ask a silly question than to make a silly assumption. > > http://stephensorablog.blogspot.com/ | > http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenboothuk | Skype: stephenbooth_uk > > Apparently I'm a "Eierlegende Woll-Milch-Sau", I think it was meant as > a compliment. > > _______________________________________________ > developers-public mailing list > [email protected] > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/andy%40planetnomad.com > _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
