Realtime Sydney Buses - PTIPS Project

[AEC Decker]

The Flinklabs Demo hasn't updated since this morning and always only shows some of the buses on the routes.
Is there a way the real data displayed to the STA depot duty officers available outside the STA intranet ?.
If so, link please.

[hornetfig]

^ The source website (nswbusdata.info) stopped updating, as seems to be customary, on Saturday. Then it came to life for a little bit in the wee small hours of this morning. Then the entire website died. Now it's working again this evening.

It's pretty hard to write anything against the data source when it keeps dieing...

Anyway, I think I've fixed the bus service history collation. So maybe it will be useful now (assuming the PTIPS export continues).
http://69.164.197.20/sta/query.php


But Mr Decker, I don't know why certain services never seem to show up in the system at all -- whether it's the drivers or PTIPS or the PTIPS XML export system.

[supersimpsons]

Are the SMS Real-time updates still working? I have tried to use them over the past couple of days and nothing happens...

[hornetfig]

nup. As you can see, the data hasn't updated itself since 3:30am, Friday 18 March. It was never exactly reliable. Sad though.

[boronia]

I last used the SMS service about 17:30 on Tues 29th, it was working OK then.

[Beaches77]

The SMS service is secondhand not linked in with the iPhone tripview. I gave trialled it over 3 different nights and the SMS service is a lot mor accurate (when it works) it looks like the tripview application is based on timetables only.

I can't see why they can't have an application like tramtracker in Melbourne, that is very accurate, and you can even try and find a specific tram number!

[sexybususer]

The SMS service is secondhand not linked in with the iPhone tripview. I gave trialled it over 3 different nights and the SMS service is a lot mor accurate (when it works) it looks like the tripview application is based on timetables only.

I can't see why they can't have an application like tramtracker in Melbourne, that is very accurate, and you can even try and find a specific tram number!

its all too political. Perhaps BO (Barry O'Farrel) will push for it. All of the suggestions recommended are easy enough to implement with PTIPS

[MetroLine]

With the completion of PTIPS, I just wondering the next stage will include installing real time arrival information signs at major bus stops/interchanges like what Smartbus is doing.

[tonyp]

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smar ... 1g805.html

Commuters love it, but plug pulled on bus app
Jacob Saulwick
June 18, 2011

Dead ... An app that allowed users to follow buses on their paths through the city received more than 200,000 views in the two weeks it was live.

IT TOOK Ben Hosken 1½ days to create an application about Sydney Buses that people wanted to use. It took the government two weeks to close it down.

In February, Mr Hosken was given access to live traffic information that provided, at two-minute intervals, live updates of where State Transit buses sat on Sydney roads.

The government had thrown open the information two weeks before an ''app day'' it hosted on February 19 ''for developers and public servants to come together and make web apps using NSW government data''.

Through his firm Flink Labs, Mr Hosken took less than two days to turn the information, collected by the Roads and Traffic Authority using GPS tags on buses into an application allowing users to follow buses on their paths through the city.

Buses were colour-coded according to route. Users could zoom in to see where the next bus was.

The application was an immediate success. In the two weeks it was live, it received more than 200,000 views.

The manager of IT operations at State Transit emailed to ask where Flink Labs got its data from, what was its plan for it and whether it would turn it into a proper mobile phone app.

''I was like well, it is your data - you've made it available,'' Mr Hosken said.

But by February 28, the government withdrew the live bus data and the program was dead.

''We really hoped … that the data would be made available, because it obviously struck a chord,'' Mr Hosken said.

State Transit has since set up a text message service to tell commuters how far away their bus is.

But a spokesman for the Transport Department yesterday said the government did not yet have sufficient computer capacity to provide real-time bus information permanently.

''The system is not yet able to provide a reliable or sustainable feed,'' the spokesman said.

He said the department was committed to ''providing data to developers''.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smar ... z1PbF3AZlK

[Mr Bean]

I think everyone can see through that phrase now so commonly used by media departments and spokespersons. "We are committed to...." meaning "We pay lipservice to......"

[hornetfig]

It did actually work sporadically until mid-March. If they were to launch the service on a permanent basis, they'd need to do certain additional development work - namely to introduce API keys (which unique identifies each web service pulling the data) and rate limiting (that controls how often information can be pulled from the service).

If that was done, given the system to collate the data from PTIPS was already in place, and given the number of applications that would access the data would likely be quite small (I'd be surprised if 100 applications would be developed to use it), the capacity of even the most rudimentary server (or pair of servers for redundancy) would be equal to the task.

[Emm Kay Vee]

Bringing up an old topic, but I visited this website a whle ago (http://69.164.197.20/sta/query.php) and noticed that several routes from private operators now appear on the list.

Although, it hasn't been updated since mid March.

[Fleet Lists]

I clicked on a number of routes in the page linked to and all came up with
No vehicles on the road right now on route 753a or whatever route number I had clicked on.

[hornetfig]

Bringing up an old topic, but I visited this website a whle ago (http://69.164.197.20/sta/query.php) and noticed that several routes from private operators now appear on the list.

Although, it hasn't been updated since mid March.

That's my site. It means they put the system online for a short while in March - I never noticed!

Just looking through the logs, it was previously online last on 18 March 2011. But it came online at 21:15 on 6 March 2012. It was still online at the next refresh at 21:27, but that's it.

The system reported some privates, yes:

13 Busways Blacktown
1 CDC Hillsbus R4
20 Newcastle Buses
1 Oliveri Transport
240 Sydney Buses
5 Western Sydney Buses

A number of the STA vehicles in that number were "not in service".

[tonyp]

In Plzen, Czech Republic there are these next bus displays. I assume they're linked to an onboard system but maybe not necessarily so since the transport here runs with a high degree of reliability. Also with trams and buses every few minutes it seems a bit superfluous compared to the average Australian situation where you can wait long times and then the runs may be out of order.

[Daniel]

Interestingly from the Draft Sydney Transport Master Plan, page 66:

The Public Transport Information and Priority System (PTIPS) has been deployed to almost 3000 buses, including all STA buses and buses from seven private bus companies, and will be deployed to the remainder of the NSW private bus fleet by March 2013. It gives bus operators a valuable real-time service monitoring tool. An SMS service that provides bus passengers with real-time bus arrival prediction information is receiving around 180,000 requests per week. Applications for iPhone and Android smartphones are currently being developed to provide more user-friendly and enhanced features to supplement the SMS service, together with a publicly accessible real-time bus status data feed for use by application developers.

[boxythingy]

Interestingly from the Draft Sydney Transport Master Plan, page 66:

buses from seven private bus companies, and will be deployed to the remainder of the NSW private bus fleet by March 2013. It gives bus operators a valuable real-time service monitoring tool.

Hope this is ready by that date then