GMPTE bus app

[Ian Dunlop]

Hello,

Just put together a ruby on rails 3 web based bus app using the Naptan bus stop data from data.gov.uk and the GMPTE atco-cif data.  You can click on stops, get route data and show routes on the map.  I hope to add timing information soon.  Have a look at http://busfinder.thetravellingbard.org.uk (while the server is up/BT don't pull the plug!)
 
The app also has a JSON based api so that other developers can re-use the data.

The code is up on github at https://github.com/ianwdunlop/busfinder

Cheers,

Ian

[Adam Holt]

Awesome, can see myself really using this, might fork and have a play over the weekend

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[Ben Gibbs]

Nice work Ian!

I created http://gmbuses.heroku.com using the (now award winning!) Linked Data version of the GMPTE (or TfGM) data.

Also David Bamber created Next Bus? Manchester (http://bmbr.co/nextbus/) which is a mobile app letting you know when the next bus at a certain stop is due.

I'd be up for getting our heads together and creating the ultimate bus travel app for Greater Manchester incorporating our different approaches and making something awesomer!

What do you think? Ben

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[Ian Dunlop]

Hello,

Glad you like it.  Would love to work with other people and create the 'ultimate' travel app.  The busfinder stuff was partly inspired because I never have the faintest idea what route a bus is taking so never know when to get off!  Adding geo-location is a step I would like to add, as well as lots of other cool things.  Hopefully get some more ideas and get something going in a week or 2 when work (real life!) has calmed down a bit.

Cheers,

Ian

[RicRoberts]

Good work, Ian. :) And, yeah, I'd be up for getting together and making something awesomer!

In case you hadn't seen it, here's a link to the site with the Linked Data version of the bus data that Ben mentioned: http://linkedmanchester.org. I'd been meaning to mention it on here for a while but hadn't got around to it. :)

We put it together for one of the recent MDDA hack days, and it recently won an EU Open Data Challenge Award (bit.ly/j3Iwqc) - thanks for mentioning that Ben! Its running on my company's PublishMyData Linked Data platform ...the api docs (including ruby examples) for which can be found here http://PublishMyData.com - Basically You can access the data in a variety of formats including HTML, JSON and XML over a restful interface... or you can run custom queries against our db. If anyone's got any questions about how to use it, I'd be happy to help - just drop me a mail.

We're a few days away from getting an auto-updating version going, which regularly picks up the most recent data timetable data from TfGM. The data is currently a few weeks out of date.

[RicRoberts]

Oops... The api docs are actually here: http://publishmydata.com/api. Sorry for spamming the list!

[Tim Waters]

Wonderful apps!

NAPTAN is not that great in some areas, accuracy wise. I know that, in Leeds, that some NAPTAN bus stop locations that are about 100m off (either up or down the street from the actual location they should be) - but you could get better NAPTAN sourced bus stops locations from OpenStreetMap.

The Naptan points were imported into OSM and then folks have been verifying and cleaning the locations of the stops.  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Naptan for more information about the import, status, schema etc.

You can also download just the locations of these cleaned bus stops using an Xapi service, i.e.  http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/open/xapi 

The OSM map tiles have bus stops icon built into the map, which may be useful too (http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.46644&lon=-2.25054&zoom=17&layers=M)

Cheers,

Tim

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