Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
Yeah, we have a system here at MARTA. It's not public however. The infrastructure of 2-way radios for position reporting also supports police, operations and maintenance communications with push-to-talk; but, it cost many millions using 800 MHz trunked radios. I contend that 3G cellular using mobile routers is far more cost effective than a dedicated infrastructure for position reporting only. And it's easy to distribute to the public if you're using Google. Terry On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:50 PM, OrionWorks svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote: From Terry: Maybe they should use google also like Boston. I talked to one of our techies. There may be financial issues. Google's version is certainly better presented, but in the longer run it may turn out not to be as cheap to implement or maintain. I noticed Madison's version appears to update itself every 30 or 60 seconds. Very odd. Not a consistent recycling. It works, but obviously the updates aren't as timely as the Boston version. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
From Jed: My daughter who lives in Boston sent me this link to a local bus company that shows where its buses are in real time, on the map: http://masco.transloc.com/ This is the kind of thing that could have been done years ago but no one thought to do it. In retrospect it is an obvious application of internet and GPS technology: easy and cheap to implement and useful to the customers. I expect the bus company has been tracking its drivers for a long time, although I was surprised to find the other day that a local FedEx truck was not equipped with a GPS map. Many technical problems can be solved more easily than people realize. Often the hardest part is to convince people to try something new. - Jed As a DOT employee for the state of Wisconsin I found this link informative. Thanks Jed. I passed it on. (It was fun to watch, too!) Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
From Jed: My daughter who lives in Boston sent me this link to a local bus company that shows where its buses are in real time, on the map: http://masco.transloc.com/ This is the kind of thing that could have been done years ago but no one thought to do it. In retrospect it is an obvious application of internet and GPS technology: easy and cheap to implement and useful to the customers. I expect the bus company has been tracking its drivers for a long time, although I was surprised to find the other day that a local FedEx truck was not equipped with a GPS map. Many technical problems can be solved more easily than people realize. Often the hardest part is to convince people to try something new. - Jed As a DOT employee for the state of Wisconsin I found this link informative. Thanks Jed. I passed it on. (It was fun to watch, too!) I did make some inquiries. Turns out Madison does have their own on-line bus tracker version. http://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/TransitTracker/TransitTracker.html Click on the View Live Map link. It isn't as slick as the Boston Tracker however. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
I know the bus system here in phoenix has been equipped with gps for a while. one of the uses is an automated, you are approaching X street announcement over the pa system that tags when you reach certain spots. THEY have the live tracking, but they havent given it publicly. sigh. On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: My daughter who lives in Boston sent me this link to a local bus company that shows where its buses are in real time, on the map: http://masco.transloc.com/ This is the kind of thing that could have been done years ago but no one thought to do it. In retrospect it is an obvious application of internet and GPS technology: easy and cheap to implement and useful to the customers. I expect the bus company has been tracking its drivers for a long time, although I was surprised to find the other day that a local FedEx truck was not equipped with a GPS map. Many technical problems can be solved more easily than people realize. Often the hardest part is to convince people to try something new. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
Maybe they should use google also like Boston. Terry On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:32 PM, OrionWorks svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote: From Jed: My daughter who lives in Boston sent me this link to a local bus company that shows where its buses are in real time, on the map: http://masco.transloc.com/ This is the kind of thing that could have been done years ago but no one thought to do it. In retrospect it is an obvious application of internet and GPS technology: easy and cheap to implement and useful to the customers. I expect the bus company has been tracking its drivers for a long time, although I was surprised to find the other day that a local FedEx truck was not equipped with a GPS map. Many technical problems can be solved more easily than people realize. Often the hardest part is to convince people to try something new. - Jed As a DOT employee for the state of Wisconsin I found this link informative. Thanks Jed. I passed it on. (It was fun to watch, too!) I did make some inquiries. Turns out Madison does have their own on-line bus tracker version. http://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/TransitTracker/TransitTracker.html Click on the View Live Map link. It isn't as slick as the Boston Tracker however. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Real time bus schedule
From Terry: Maybe they should use google also like Boston. I talked to one of our techies. There may be financial issues. Google's version is certainly better presented, but in the longer run it may turn out not to be as cheap to implement or maintain. I noticed Madison's version appears to update itself every 30 or 60 seconds. Very odd. Not a consistent recycling. It works, but obviously the updates aren't as timely as the Boston version. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
