Me2Bus Boston claims to let you know when the next bus will arrive at your stop - at least, based on published T schedules. They say it's for iPhones, but it works even on my laptop (albeit not with fancy finger whooshing).
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Free as in Beer AND Speech
By Kaz
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:00am
Whoever put this site together can have a beer on me. That's a pretty awesome thing to have done considering I don't see any real advertisement and the company that made it is an online webinar/courseware type company, so it's certainly not in their direct interests as far as I can tell to have done so.
This beats the Palm software crap that MBTA *paid* a company to create for its own "mobile access" application that you can get through MBTA.com. It beats it by a mile. I can't wait until they get more route maps up on the site.
Can it do data gathering
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:10am
As in "scheduled versus actual time" being sent off to some data base and later used to do some performance research?
It would be totally cool if it could pop up a dialogue, ask what time the bus really came, and ask if you want to report it!
Nothing there for that
By Kaz
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:13am
There's nothing on the site that includes feedback, but I know what you're talking about. I have seen quite a few flight tracker software take this into account, where people can rate the flight in general (1 to 5 stars) and then give specifics about crowdedness (as a percentage of max capacity), lateness (delays, etc), and other qualities other passengers might be interested to know.
That would be a great next step in evolving this site a bit more...but I also do like its simplicity in form and function as well because if I just want to get a "next bus" time, I don't want to wade through a bunch of extraneous links, etc. Especially on my iPhone where I've noticed I fat-finger the browser links all too often because I'm in a rush and too busy to be bothered to zoom way in to isolate the links better from each other, especially on some sites were every picture is a link out to an ad.
Remember when the T promised iPod-compatible schedules?
By Arborway
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:10am
Yeah, I thought that was a pretty funny one too!
Let me call up the bus schedule on my iPod while I hand the commuter rail conductor my Charlie Card - which by the way, I had replaced after some crackhead stole the one I used to carry with me.
it existed...
By Brett
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:43am
...and it was pulled from the website after the redesign, but the Palm version was left up. Multiple emails to Starts and Stops (the useless Globe column about transportation headaches) and the MBTA complaint form went ignored.
It's annoying that this new site doesn't make it clear that it is only carrying the SCHEDULE, not when busses ACTUALLY arrive(d). The language is pretty misleading: "Recent arrival 5 min ago."
Call me when it actually shows where the busses are. The MBTA has the capability, with all the busses being equipped with GPS units that tell the drivers how close they are to the schedule. Other transit systems have had this kind of capability for years, even some pretty po-dunk ones!
Of course, that's not where the priority at the MBTA is. The priority has been towards flooding the busses with cameras. I was on an 86 bus recently, and there were so many security cameras, I lost track. What the hell?
All those cameras
By Michael
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:53am
One of them should be pointed outside and streaming to the website. Maybe (assuming you're familiar enough with the route to recognize landmarks, corners, and businesses) you could tell where the bus is! Because, like you said, installing accurate trackers that might actually help the public isn't something the T wants to do.
Distinction
By Kaz
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 11:54am
Keep the distinction that this website is not the MBTA and therefore doesn't have access to any real-time info on the buses that the MBTA may or may not actually be collecting. I know the buses have computer units in them that can determine how on-time they are in real time, but I'm not certain if that info is getting back to the MBTA until the bus arrives at one end of its route or not even at all.
So, me2bus will never show where the buses actually are because it's not likely to ever be privy to that kind of information.
I know real time scheduling info is possible, I've witnessed it all over Europe. It'd be nice to start looking to them for adoption of mass transit improvements rather than what seems like a "do it our own way" approach that brings us things like Acela and stop signs on the Green B Line.
It's even possible in Framingham
By adamg
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 12:06pm
Real-time locations of MWRTA buses.
and here..
By guitarguynbosto...
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 12:40pm
http://shuttle.harvard.edu/
Very cool
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 12:51pm
Thanks for linking to that guys.
I hope they put those electronics behind some hardened cases in view of the bus driver and armed the same with weapons to fend off terrorists ...no, not seriously.
iPhone App
By WonderlandDev
Tue, 09/08/2009 - 10:20pm
Native iPhone apps allowed us to use your location to find the nearest T stations in our app: to a T.
You also pick a station and launch quickly in to how to walk or ride there.
Check it out @ http://devwonderland.com or in the app store.