Combining Google Transit trip planning results with other data - how about a web service?

[JP]

Hi all,

There's a host of great ideas floating out there to combine Google
Transit with other data and systems, e.g. bycicle routes.

What if the trip planning results of GT were available in a way such
that queries and results could be made from outside the Google Transit
user interface, e.g. through an XML-based interface? Just two examples
of such interfaces: NOAA offer their weather forecasts through an XML
interface, and TriMet offer real time estimates for transit vehicle
arrivals at stops. With such an interface, the "crowd" (which includes
myself) could integrate other systems - to everybody's benefit: We
would get the data, while Google didn't necessarily have to implement
integration of other systems all by themselves. We could build and
enrich our apps, while Google Transit would get additional exposure.

My question to the team at Google is whether you would entertain the
idea of such an interface?

JP

[Joe Hughes]

In the same way that Google offers a driving directions API today, it
seems reasonable that they might eventually offer a transit directions
API. Unfortunately for mashup creators, not every transit agency is
comfortable with the idea of their information appearing in arbitrary
applications. (As you can see, not every agency has made their
schedule data feeds available to the development community.)

However, there's quite a bit that can be done using the schedule data
feeds that agencies *have* made available:
http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/PublicFeeds

I don't need to tell you this, Joachim, but for the benefit of other readers:
Practically all the information that Google uses in planning trips is
available in these feed files--certainly enough for other developers
to use in building their own transit applications. There's a lot of
detail there, too much to read directly into javascript, for example,
but some of the people on the "Transit Developers" group have have
been talking about building a server that provides a JSON or XML API
from data in GTFS feeds. In fact, there's already a simple one in the
Schedule Viewer application in our GoogleTransitDataFeed open-source
project:
http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/ScheduleViewer

So if you're interested in building transit mashups, I would recommend
starting with the GTFS feeds that are already available, and asking
your local agency to make theirs available to developers as well.

Joe

[JP]

Thank you Joe - Justed wanted to float the idea. I can see how it
takes a process for TA's to get to a comfort level to open up transit
data even further. Something for the mid to long term. Some
interesting use cases could be covered thoguh. I am talking to TA's
all the time, so are Google of course, perhaps we can get buy-in for
an interesting project some time down the road.
Joachim

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[mikel...@gmail.com]

> So if you're interested in building transit mashups, I would recommend
> starting with the GTFS feeds that are already available, and asking
> your local agency to make theirs available to developers as well.

These feeds are a good starting point. And it's good to see that
Google has worked with many other agencies to export their data in
GTFS, for use in Google Transit. But how can we best work together to
expand the list of transit agencies publishing their schedules openly,
for anyone to use? I believe if we work together, to focus our
lobbying efforts with agencies, we can effectively get more of this
data -- good for developers generally and Google.

The main thing I see at the moment is a difference between the
PublicFeeds list, and the list of agencies on http://www.google.com/transit.
These agencies are already convinced of the value of publishing in
GTFS, and sharing to some extent. If we can make a compelling case as
to why they should release the data more widely (beside the simple
fact that most all of these agencies are publicly funded) then I think
we can rapidly expand free and open transit data.

For a start, I'd expand the PublicFeeds wiki page to include the
agencies currently included in Google Transit, and add a column which
indicates it's GTransit status. I'd also add a column for us lobbyists
to record history of our efforts communicating with the agencies,
along with anything we learned in the process. Further, we could add
transit agencies which currently offer no public feed or GTransit feed
at all, for a second round of lobbying.

Another document we could work on together is a letter for introducing
our request and rationale to transit agencies.

I've seen particular success in this approach in Europe and
OpenStreetMap. With lobbied several governments to openly release
their geodata for use in OSM, with some success. I'd be happy to take
part in a transit oriented effort.

What are your thoughts on this? Anyone interested?

Mikel

[Joe Hughes]

Hi Mikel,

I think that it could be helpful to have more developers explaining to
agencies why they're interested in getting access to the schedule
data, and what they could build with it if they had it.

However, I'm not sure that the GoogleTransitDataFeed wiki (which hosts
the PublicFeeds page) is the best venue to coordinate this, since to
edit that wiki page you need to be a member of the open source
project. (The main aim of that project is developing libraries and
tools for working with GTFS data.)

Since I'm sure you want many transit developers to participate (more
than will be contributing code to that project), it might be better to
host such an effort in a more inclusive venue. Perhaps the "Pages"
section of the "Transit Developers" Google Group would work better?

Joe