Monday, March 12, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
https://twitter.com/#!/traintalk/status/162722118583324672
מישהו במשרדי התיירות או התחבורה יכול(ה) להסביר לי בבקשה למה ישראל לא מופיעה בתוך המעל מ-475 מקומות ב- Google Transit maps.google.com/intl/en/landin…
https://maps.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/index.html#mdy
Why isn't Israel counted among the first over 475 cities?
Is it because Israel is a country, not a city and there's no category for that? Nope. Because there are national lines on the list.
Here's the update
Oh - is it because our trains aren't like the one in the picture below?
Is there a reason?
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Are Google Train Times coming? OneBusAway Seattle; Brian Ferris, Google Transit team in Zürich - when here?
I was pointed by the New York Times articles by Lisa Margonelli, the latest "Lessons in Transit Innovation" dated November 22, 2011.
Some details are provided by Brier Dudley in an article for the Seattle Times and others in Brian Ferris' last blog post.
The best description is most probably Brian Ferris' 2011 PhD dissertation, "OneBusAway: Improving the Usability of Public Transit". As is the case regarding dissertations - "extensive copying ... is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with 'fair use' as prescribed in the U.S. Copyright Law. Requests for copying or reproduction of this dissertation may be referred to Proquest Information and Learning..."
See also "Announcing GTFS-realtime, a new specification for sharing realtime public transit data" on Google Groups General Transit Feed Spec Changes also linking to the preceding official Google Code blog announcement, August 22-23, 2011.
The interesting thing is that these type of initiatives come from outside the transit systems themselves. See the comment from Heather Seattle Nov. 19 2:20am for more.
And whether GTFS or SIRI or NFC ever get to help make real time train times available to the Israeli train passenger by way of Google remains to be seen.
It would not surprise me to know that a system for Israel is in beta or even further but held up for public use because of government bureaucratic or other organizational or internal reason(s).
Some details are provided by Brier Dudley in an article for the Seattle Times and others in Brian Ferris' last blog post.
The best description is most probably Brian Ferris' 2011 PhD dissertation, "OneBusAway: Improving the Usability of Public Transit". As is the case regarding dissertations - "extensive copying ... is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with 'fair use' as prescribed in the U.S. Copyright Law. Requests for copying or reproduction of this dissertation may be referred to Proquest Information and Learning..."
See also "Announcing GTFS-realtime, a new specification for sharing realtime public transit data" on Google Groups General Transit Feed Spec Changes also linking to the preceding official Google Code blog announcement, August 22-23, 2011.
The interesting thing is that these type of initiatives come from outside the transit systems themselves. See the comment from Heather Seattle Nov. 19 2:20am for more.
And whether GTFS or SIRI or NFC ever get to help make real time train times available to the Israeli train passenger by way of Google remains to be seen.
It would not surprise me to know that a system for Israel is in beta or even further but held up for public use because of government bureaucratic or other organizational or internal reason(s).
Maybe traintalk is still viable as a passenger-initiated idea if official real time feeds are - for whatever reason - not going to serve the public in the short term.
And maybe we have to wonder if it will be considered "legal" in the future to give train times - official or first-hand via word of mouth or in digital format? Crazy, huh?
Why can't we, the passengers, do this now? Following the Summer of Self-Discovery: A Grass Roots Civil Society, we should ask ourselves why we aren't doing this and other things already...
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Open Spot [Google Labs] RIP - no longer a possible solution - how about NFC chips (updated Nov 18, 2011)
Open Spot might have provided a traintalk kind of solution once (if) had it expandsed internationally and to Israel.
The reasoning would have been - the time people get off a train at the last station can give valuable data for people getting on at the next station.To my not very Googly mind, the tweaks to get this to work would be minor and the potential payoff off the radar in all types of ways. Something that creates or saves time for people should have a positive value as compared with the time people are held hostage (i.e. - lose or waste) to timetables. I'm waiting for a response to an email I sent to google - labs - support [at] google [dot] com on March 22, 2011 or to a separate post to the moderator of the Open Spot Discussion Group sent today.
About two months after starting to write the above, it became clear that lack of user interaction killed Open Spot according to this article by Ian Sherwin. The problems with Open Spot were: "1. Not enough people use the application and 2. Of the people that have the application, not enough of them inform the system when they pull out of their spot." The author's solution for Open Spot - Near Field Communication technology - may also be thetraintalk solution for Google.
The reasoning would have been - the time people get off a train at the last station can give valuable data for people getting on at the next station.
About two months after starting to write the above, it became clear that lack of user interaction killed Open Spot according to this article by Ian Sherwin. The problems with Open Spot were: "1. Not enough people use the application and 2. Of the people that have the application, not enough of them inform the system when they pull out of their spot." The author's solution for Open Spot - Near Field Communication technology - may also be the
Sunday, January 2, 2011
New Year's promises... for 2013
You might get real times (but where? on your phone is where it matters...) starting in 2013 from Israel Railways. And by then you might also have wifi connections while you travel. Really? Hold your breath until then?
This is from a Globes article in Hebrew from January 2, 2011
http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000611833
The article may not be accessible free when you want to see it.
Here is the relevant passage:
Additionally the average wait time by the year 2020 is expected to be "only" 7 minutes. Makes you wonder who is fudging the official stats....
Does anyone need further proof of market need for a realtime service of this kind for the foreseeable future?
None of this, (un)fortunately, appears in Globes' English translation:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000612448&fid=1725
This is from a Globes article in Hebrew from January 2, 2011
http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000611833
The article may not be accessible free when you want to see it.
Here is the relevant passage:
הקרונות החדשים שיסופקו החל מ-2013 יכללו מסכים אלקטרוניים שיעדכנו את הנוסעים בזמן אמת בלוחות הזמנים והנוסעים יוכלו לגלוש באינטרנט אלחוטי
[Translated] New train cars supplied in 2013 will include electronic monitors that will update passengers in real time of any changes in time schedule and the passengers will also have wireless internet connection.
Does anyone need further proof of market need for a realtime service of this kind for the foreseeable future?
None of this, (un)fortunately, appears in Globes' English translation:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000612448&fid=1725
