acts_as_informative

TXT.2.ETS is a hacker project that @joeljackson and I (@seanhealy) put together after being inspired by the open data event in Edmonton this last weekend.

Basically if you text us a bus stop number we will send back the next few buses that will arrive and when.

We are still doing some testing on it so please forgive any bugs that may come up. Also, while we sort out a solution to getting a Canadian txt number if you are on Rogers of Fido they will charge you 25¢ to send a txt to our current number which is in the US. (If things go as they should we should have the Canadian number figured out in a couple days. Thanks @camlinke!)

TXT.2.ETS’s Number: (858) 779-4952

Example:

Sent to (858) 779-4952:
    2872

Response:
    Trips from stop 2875 (109 Street & 82 Avenue):
    
    9: 07:11 PM
    9: 07:26 PM
    9: 07:41 PM
    9: 07:56 PM
    9: 08:11 PM
    9: 08:26 PM

Found a bug or have feedback?

Send us a text starting with the word bug or the word feedback and we will get you input.

Example:

Sent to (858) 779-4952:
    feedback You guys rock!

Response:
    Your feedback has been logged. Thank you for your thoughts.

Twitter

As a bonus we also did a twitter interface. If you send a tweet to @etsinfo with a stop number it will @reply you back with the bus times.

Oh, and unless you want to be spammed with everyone’s requests it is probably best not to follow @etsinfo. ;)

Example:

Sent
    @etsInfo 2872

Response:
    Trips from stop 2875 (109 Street & 82 Avenue):
    
    9: 07:11 PM
    9: 07:26 PM
    9: 07:41 PM
    9: 07:56 PM

API!

While getting all the Google Transit info playing nice wasn’t any sort of epic accomplishment it did take a bit of time. So, we thought we’d save anyone else who may want to do a similar project a bit of time by exposing our data to whomever wants it.

For now we only have a simple lookup that lets you find a stop and returns some info about it including the next few buses that will show up.

If you have any other data that you think would be nice to have exposed let us know and we will do our best to add it.

It is available at: http://etstext.blackskycorp.com/stop/<stop_id>.<format>

Where <format> is either: html, txt, xml or json and <stop_id> is an ETS stop number.

Example:

http://etstext.blackskycorp.com/stop/2875.json   #=>

    {
       "stop_id":"2875,
       "stop_name":"109 Street & 82 Avenue",
       "stop_lat":53.5189,
       "stop_lon":-113.512,
       "trips_departing":[
          {
             "bus":"9",
             "time":"05:28:00"
          },
          {
             "bus":"9",
             "time":"05:43:00"
          },
          {
             "bus":"9",
             "time":"05:58:00"
          },
          {
             "bus":"9",
             "time":"06:13:00"
          },
          {
             "bus":"9",
             "time":"06:28:00"
          },
          {
             "bus":"17",
             "time":"06:37:00"
          }
       ]
    }

Future

We don’t have a timeline for any of these at the moment. If you have a snazzy idea we would love to hear it too!

Routing:

We think it would be cool if you could send us you current location and then where you want to go and we could give you a suggested transit route on how to get there.

Better Estimation:

We have an interesting particle filter idea that we want to try so we could use the data we get from people’s requests to better predict bus times. We haven’t started hardly anything on this part yet as it would be a bigger job and would depend on the amount of usage we get but who knows, better bus estimation would be pretty fantastic. :)