Thanks for posting! I live in Minneapolis and rely on the bus system for transport. So far it's easier to use than the NextTrip website on my phone.
For my usual trip each day there are several buses that work for me, and what I was hoping for is a site that centers a map on my location (from my phone gps) and shows me all buses in my general vicinity. I would use this to select a route.
That's definitely something I've been thinking about. It adds another level of complexity though, so I'm taking my time with it.
Do I add some type of "sign-in" functionality to save bookmarks to a profile? Or just let people save bookmarks to a cookie? (by bookmarks, I mean stops)
I need to tweak my full-text search and general layout. But your addition of maps is a nice touch. Adding the location of the stop with a separate icon may be a nice addition.
Nice to see what other developers are doing with the Nextrip API. I think the market for transit data is going to get pretty busy in the near future!
As an aside, stops are marked with a red marker icon, and buses with a bus icon. This is consistent with the regular "stop" map displayed by default on departure listings. The map icons need a little love, and I'm open to suggestions.
Ah, I understand the map now. I'm bleary-eyed and missed that.
My grand vision was to do a comet-style app where you see the buses "move" towards your position/stop on a Google Map -- but I haven't been able to sit down and design that yet.
I wish Philadelphia provided easy access to real-time transit
information. I think the city is finally starting to release that information publicly via APIs. Hopefully we'll have something soon.
The desktop website uses flash, but the mobile website uses Javascript. What's really nice is how it uses Google Maps and overlays bus positions in real time. The bus positions are accurate to within a few seconds, so I can decide exactly when to leave for the bus stop and which bus to take.
For my usual trip each day there are several buses that work for me, and what I was hoping for is a site that centers a map on my location (from my phone gps) and shows me all buses in my general vicinity. I would use this to select a route.