Austinist: Your iPhone Knows When the Next Bus is Coming

_tanya_

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:29:25 -0600

Just taking some company's press release and repeating it isn't very valuable to Austinist readers. Maybe add some value by pointing out how this differs - or does not - from google maps public trans info, dadnab or any of the other interfaces to capmetro schedule data? Unless of course the press release is about an app that actually uses GPS and real time bus locations. Then I'll let the copy/paste journalism slide.

dirtdirt

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:28:02 -0600

Interesting: Over at the Cap Metro blog they say that ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) which will allow this and similar apps to use real time location data is coming "soon". cool!

mdahmus

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:22:20 -0600

Correct; there's no true "next bus" capability at Capital Metro. No GPS or anything like that.

dirtdirt

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:13:15 -0600

I assume (yeah, I know. Me and umption.) that this is just a front-end for bus schedule data. And therefore, no better (and in some ways worse) than either the Go Line (voice recognition bus schedules) or the Cap Metro website's trip finder. When it tells you "Next bus in 3 minutes" I am pretty sure it means "Next bus SCHEDULED to appear in 3 minutes" which is realistic from a data perspective, but unrealistic in terms of its utility. Also, for me, this is completely useless. The bus I take, 142 the Metric Flyer, is not listed.

pylorns

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:53:09 -0600

It will work on other mobile devices as a web page but the site your looking at was submitted to run specifically as an application that will be down loadable from the apple itunes store.

triman

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:37:55 -0600

Yeah, Jesus phone not needed. Local Austin startup dadnab.com offer a great service via txt messages and web site for many major cities and have for years. See http://www.dadnab.com - you just send them a txt msg with your current cross street, and the x-street where you want to go and you get a txt msg back with the next nearbye bus. Works great, no Jesus phone required.

manders

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:07:07 -0600

i think it's a little odd that this is being promoted as just for iphones... it's really just a webpage, so you can use it from anything that can access the internet. even my crappy old cell phone. yay!!