Realtime

Cold weather - nice to know when a bus is coming
Also on suburban routes - less travelled
What happened to phone numbers for bus stops?
Wasn't Y2K compliant.

Trip planning.

Quantifying margins of error?
Gather stats to know when you can make a transfer.
Buses don't always arrive on time.

Google transit. TTC info - mechanical turk? Kieran exporting already.

TTC schedules don't include all stops. Need to get people to map these out.
Infrequent routes seem have more accurate scherdules.
Late nights are a problem.

Data to open up:
- scheduling
- franchises @ stops
- schedule cahnges, routing changes - on the fly changes
- finding all stops - needs to be fed in from people in neighbourhoods (crowdsourcing)
- tracking data from buses - each has a block box that records data

Automatic Vehicle Location in process - about a 5 year horizon.

Bar Campers can build websites, but not buy buses.

Can we help the TTC monetize this?

511 - traffic/weather info: IT to help drivers know where delays are.
311 will arrive in Toronto first. Social services, etc.
City of Toronto realigning website too.

Multiple languages - ttc site needs to be translated.

Why not have a way to get information for different cities in the same format?
Microformats - way to get data on a page. Contains abstract concepts, e.g. location, schedule.

What are the social or institutional hurdles that stand between us and our ideas for the TTC?

Portland looking to move to Open Geospatial Consortium - more accurate format.


Next Bus: has GPS info on busses in US. Real-time predictions for bus arrivals.

Seattle has all the automatic vehicle location (AVL) data available online as a web service which has been repackaged as a Google mashup

US policy that data must be available. Canada has policy that data must be monetized. Do we need legislative change? Civic Access fighting for access to civic data. Crown copyright applies to federal data, but not to provincial or municipal data.

We don't need the TTC to give usa data. Schedules don't change much and are annoiunced @ the web site. We can aggregate data in XML and transform as needed.

If data was freely available, it might compete with the TTCs site. There are revenue opportunities based on the hits on the site. The TTC could make money off their web site.

Item keeps floating around: integrating data into wiki, integrating anecdotal information. is there a cost to doing that? Not really. Hosting, but that's about it.

Are special events transit needs reflected on the TTCs web site? e.g. gigs, CNE, closing time? For the most part probably...

Are the Trip Planner and Real Time two different items?

Ride-a-rama - open-source route planning software.

Privacy issues: people are looking at metrics on every bit of the TTC. Are there privacy implications? Everything we're looking at right now is opt-int, TCC data is public. But it's still a valid point.

Are there liability issues if someone acts on out-of-date info not provided by the TTC? If we can make an official policy of openness that might esolve some of the issues.

Copyright: the current admin might be benevolent; will the next one be? We may need to recreate some of it for ourselves. (cf UK postal code database re-creation, Open Street Maps.) US cities exposing operational data - Jon Udell follows some of this. Need to ensure it's as open as possible. If however the data is collected by a group other then the TTC, the data could be kept open to whomever was interested in it.

Ottawa makes high-quality geospatial data. Ben Zanin got a dump of locations of all stops from OCTranspo.

Why can't we got this from the TTC. Do we need to? Maybe the wikipedia model can work.

- A representative from the TTC commented that the existing stop data that they have was "embarrasingly out of date" and that whatever data could potentially be provided would be reasonable inacurate. The TTC has approved a $500,000 expendature to Geo-Locate all of the existing stops in the TTC service area. This data may become public however there was a suggestion from within the TTC that there is revenue potential from this data and that it may only be made available for a fee (yet to be determined). There is a public solution in the works to use a wiki style system, incorporating Google Maps, to have people Geo-Locate stops that they are familiar with.

TTC Partner program? Friends of the TTC? some form of "approval".

"My TTC" - Kieran's example leads the way. Retains personalised informaton about your use ofthe TCC, e.g. preferred routes.

Aggregation of TTC culture. e.g. photobloggers, trainspotters, historians, mashers, ...

Tie in Autoshare and Zip people, other regional transit - York, Brampton, Mississauga, GO, Greyhound.

Is there merit in having a "TTCCamp"? e.g. an Open Space event for TTC employees to bring out institutional knowledge.

Creating our own data: somewhere that people can sump their notes, even fragments. Kieran's app shows the way.

Corporations like Rogers or BCE might be interested in sponsoring some of this. Problem is where does opensource end and corporation begin? How do we balance off the access of profiteers versus non-profiteers. Highways are one possible model. The group can also enforce good form. Everything has a history so we're guarded against vandalism.

Request: can we get geeks @ the TTC in touch with us? It is a bureaucracy and we need to work with individuals to make things happen. Evolution, not revolution.