Which bus routes and service do you use?

joeKel73

Hey,

Myself and two friends are currently developing an Android application for use on the Galway bus network. It'll be a route mapping and timetabling tool which will be taking advantage of live gps positioning. :cool:

It's mid development and we plan on getting it fully functional with a couple of routes first then add additional routes to it. The app will be completely free (academic project) and we'd love to get feedback from boards users to help develop it to your needs.

To get a guage of what buses people here are using regularly, we'd appreciate it if you took a few seconds to fill out this form. Then we can introduce routes, based on the order of demand.

Hope the mods don't mind (it's a non-profit academic project).

Thanks!!

Joe

Krieg

foto joe wrote: »

Hey,
It'll be a route mapping and timetabling tool which will be taking advantage of live gps positioning. :cool:

May I ask how this works?
Im pretty sure bus eireann dont use GPS on their buses

Would be brilliant if the GPS ability worked and it was live updates. There would be no more "I better not go to the shop down the road in case I miss the bus", etc etc

FouxDaFaFa

Done. I use the Lisbeg Lawn/Merlin Pk bus whenever I have to but have taken to walking home recently because it's such an unreliable route and you could be waiting there for ages. This could be a very handy app but my initial thought was the same as Krieg's, did not think the BE buses had gps.

joeKel73

We'll be putting the GPS live positioning in the power of the user. If a user wants to view live positions... they will be asked to anomyously share their gps position too.

So when a user, or cluster of users, is coming up the road on the map - you can assume that's your bus. Sharing will switch on/off only when the user is on the bus network.


If we can show the bus companies that this works, then they may give their drivers a smart phone with an app to share their location instead of users. Dublin Bus have been playing around with a similar system but at a much higer cost I believe. Who knows when that sort of money would be invested in the Galway bus network... they still haven't even produced a map of the city with the routes on it.

yer man!

foto joe wrote: »

Hey,

Myself and two friends are currently developing an Android application for use on the Galway bus network. It'll be a route mapping and timetabling tool which will be taking advantage of live gps positioning. :cool:

It's mid development and we plan on getting it fully functional with a couple of routes first then add additional routes to it. The app will be completely free (academic project) and we'd love to get feedback from boards users to help develop it to your needs.

To get a guage of what buses people here are using regularly, we'd appreciate it if you took a few seconds to fill out this form. Then we can introduce routes, based on the order of demand.

Hope the mods don't mind (it's a non-profit academic project).

Thanks!!

Joe

Why Android out of curiosity, would you not get more ppl using it if it was an Apple app for iPhone or Touch? just wondering...

joeKel73

...because Android's the future!

If the number of android devices hasn't outpassed iPhones in Ireland yet then it soon will. The growth of Android is really pushing Apple out of the way, I was shown an article yesterday showing recent Irish stats... I'll try find it again..

joeKel73

Not the one I'm looking for but he's an article from today's paper. Symbian was actually the operating system with most devices thanks to Nokia's market share... but Nokia missed the boat on developing it like the should have.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0201/1224288694790.html

Diabhal Beag

Use the 424 bus most times I go into town in the afternoon. Hate it because its always packed.

biko

foto joe wrote: »

Hope the mods don't mind (it's a non-profit academic project).

Since it's non-profit and you have contributed to the forum I don't see an issue.

Krieg wrote: »

May I ask how this works?
Im pretty sure bus eireann dont use GPS on their buses

Would be brilliant if the GPS ability worked and it was live updates. There would be no more "I better not go to the shop down the road in case I miss the bus", etc etc

I think they will use the GPS installed on the phones.

foto joe wrote: »

If we can show the bus companies that this works, then they may give their drivers a smart phone with an app to share their location

Might just work.

Wompa1

Maybe, best of luck with it. I think there's a certain boards member who has a site which would be helpful but in turn then could also make it obsolete I'm afraid!

Mrs OBumble

Wompa1 wrote: »

Maybe, best of luck with it. I think there's a certain boards member who has a site which would be helpful but in turn then could also make it obsolete I'm afraid!

I'm pretty sure that the boards member you're referring to thinks it's a great idea, and will be

- filling in the survey
- downloading the app to her own phone (good thing I got an android, huh!)
- contributing data
- watching with great interest to see how this progresses.

FWIW, I think an app like this could be complimentary rather than a competitor: I've done a lot of work on things other than route maps (neighbourhood, theme and location maps) because I (correctly) identified that these were a way to get search traffic for www.galwaytransport.info. I don't expect the usefulness of these to go away any time soon. And even with the route information, there are different needs for people on mobile and desktop systems.

What will be most interesting is if there's a big enough population of "android enabled" people using the bus in Galway to get robust-enough data.

At least one of BE's city drivers is very big on gadgets, don't know what OS his phone is running, but he'd be good to recruit .. hopefully he's a member here, and can convince some of the other drivers to contribute.

foto-joe, do you want me to put an article about your survey onto http://galwaypublictransportnews.blogspot.com/ ... this is what feeds the news items that show up at the top of galwayTransport.info ... I'm happy to bend the the usual editorial policy (service news only), because of the possibilities

joeKel73

Thanks everyone who filled out the form! Bus routes 9 and 3 (BE) are clear leaders so far, so they'll be first to get added.

Wompa1 wrote: »

Maybe, best of luck with it. I think there's a certain boards member who has a site which would be helpful but in turn then could also make it obsolete I'm afraid!

Yeah I gave JustMary heads up of the project a few weeks ago. Hopefully along with galwaytransport.info we'll get more people using the buses in Galway. If the network was run properly like a business then all this should already be in place for commuters in the city.

JustMary wrote: »

foto-joe, do you want me to put an article about your survey onto http://galwaypublictransportnews.blogspot.com/ ... this is what feeds the news items that show up at the top of galwayTransport.info ... I'm happy to bend the the usual editorial policy (service news only), because of the possibilities

Thanks JustMary but I'll keep it to this thread for now. When we get a functional app, a feature on the blog would be great.

eagle10

foto joe wrote: »

Hey,

Myself and two friends are currently developing an Android application for use on the Galway bus network. It'll be a route mapping and timetabling tool which will be taking advantage of live gps positioning. :cool:

It's mid development and we plan on getting it fully functional with a couple of routes first then add additional routes to it. The app will be completely free (academic project) and we'd love to get feedback from boards users to help develop it to your needs.

To get a guage of what buses people here are using regularly, we'd appreciate it if you took a few seconds to fill out this form. Then we can introduce routes, based on the order of demand.

Hope the mods don't mind (it's a non-profit academic project).

Thanks!!

Joe

Fair play great Idea.
Best of luck:D

ErnieBert

Can I throw in my 2 cents?

Last October, I was helping a friend with stuff in his house for about 12 consecutive evenings 7pm to 11pm including 2 weekends. He lives on the Knocknacarra 2W route, near Knocknacarra church. I couldn't help but notice that this bus was almost always empty. Where there were passengers on board, there were never more than 5 or 6 people.

It became an obsession of mine to observe the bus. From an economic point, this seems unviable. I have no doubt that the bus picked up other passengers en-route to Eyre Square. Is this common with this and other routes?



Footnote: I haven't been on a bus in Galway in over 10 years. It just doesn't suit my needs. I bring kids to school and I often need to bring stuff to work which wouldn't be very portable.

joeKel73

I'm not familiar with that route (yet!) but if it's near the start of the route into town then it'd be normal enough for there to only be a few onboard... most would be going the full way into town so the bus just gets more full as it goes.

moonflower

The 2W/D is nearly always empty, except between 1 and 4, when people are getting off school.
It could have something to do with the fact that they're quite unreliable, often leave early, sometimes don't show up at all and run at random times with no timetables at the bus stops. It'd be much better if they set them at a regular time, say every 15 minutes at peak times, every 30 minutes at other times and then every hour after 10pm.

Mrs OBumble

That route does a circuit around Knocknacarra, so there's no definite beginning. I've used it earlier in the evening, and there were a lot more people on it.

IMHO the problem with the route is the lack of frequency. If buses ran more often (every 15 minutes or less) and at predictable times (0, 15, 30 and 45 ... or 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 even), I think the population out there is large enough for it to be a successful route.

With a 1/2 hourly service, if one bus doesn't come (eg driver goes sick and there's no sub available), then there's a big delay 'til the next one, so the service is perceived as very bad and people don't use it. If it's a more frequent service, then the occasional missing bus isn't such an issue, so people have more faith in the bus, so are more willing to use it.

joeKel73

Thanks all who filled in the form, 20 responses, #9 and #3 are by far the most popular.

So we've started work on #3 and we need your help/experience.

See the Eyre Squary -> Ballybrit map with bus-stops here.
(Click bus-stops for next bus times)

From what I understand there is no bus-stop specific times provided by bus eireann. Can those who frequently use this service give an estimate off the time taken between each stop? I initially have it as 2min between each stop just to get the code working.

So can you Copy & Paste this and correct to what you think is an accurate time offset from eyre square for each one.

Stop 1: 0mins (Eyre Square)
Stop 2: 2mins
Stop 3: 4mins
Stop 4: 6mins
Stop 5: 8mins
Stop 6: 10mins
Stop 7: 12mins
Stop 8: 14mins
Stop 9: 16mins
Stop 10: 18mins
Stop 11: 20mins
Stop 12: 22mins
Stop 13: 24mins
Stop 14: 26mins (Clayton Hotel)

Thanks all!

Eman Resu

Brilliant Idea! Sounds like a cool project to code, only thing is BE mightn't like a system that could record and highlight the weakness's in their service.

joeKel73

Eman Resu wrote: »

...only thing is BE mightn't like a system that could record and highlight the weakness's in their service.

If we have live positioning in the power of the users then they can't turn it off/on. There are of course issues of critical mass of people needed to make is useful and accuracy of positions etc... but it'll work off the timetable anyway as well.

Eman Resu

Well announce here when its ready for download, cos It's the first app I would consider worth the GPS battery drain, for two reasons it's a good idea and its being developed locally.

Mrs OBumble

foto joe wrote: »

...
So we've started work on #9 and we need your help/experience.

See the Eyre Squary -> Ballybrit map with bus-stops here.
(Click bus-stops for next bus times)

From what I understand there is no bus-stop specific times provided by bus eireann. Can those who frequently use this service give an estimate off the time taken between each stop?

Umm ... that map is route #3 not #9.

And there's your first hitch: time between stops is vastly different in light vs heavy traffic and passenger loadings.

But in general, I'd say default to 1 minute between stops not 2. And only 30 seconds between 7 and 8, and 13 and 14, and 2-3-4-5

joeKel73

JustMary wrote: »

Umm ... that map is route #3 not #9.

D'oh! Yes... Route 3.

JustMary wrote: »

And there's your first hitch: time between stops is vastly different in light vs heavy traffic and passenger loadings.

Yeah, it'd be no problem having rush-hour offset times to kickin between certain hours if people wanted to provide that level of detail for it.

JustMary wrote: »

But in general, I'd say default to 1 minute between stops not 2. And only 30 seconds between 7 and 8, and 13 and 14, and 2-3-4-5

Thanks for this, I'll input those offsets and see how things looks. I'll need to change my offset values to seconds rather than minutes for calculations now first.

joeKel73

OK updated with JustMary's offset times. Thanks

Would people want a peak/offpeak correction?

Maybe 20% (?) longer journey between 8.00am-9.30am and 4pm-6pm...?

ZRelation

Why are you trying to estimate offset times for each stop? As JustMary said they'll vary alot depending on traffic and passenger numbers. Would it not be best just to indicate the stop the bus is currently closest to based on its GPS location?

joeKel73

We're trying to have it fully functional based on the timetable first as it'll only be useful for live positioning once a certain number of users are sharing their locations.

We'll not get it perfect but increasing journey times between different hours should help tune it in. Like does it take 50% longer in the morning than it does when the traffic is low? If we set the clear-road offsets now... we can easily add in extra journey times for specified peak hours.

ZRelation

Sounds good...would be interesting even just to see how journey times change during the day! I'll try get some of the #9 journey times the next time I'm on it.

TristanPeter

I'm sure you have thought about this FotoJoe but could you not just ask for permission to place a GPS on the No. 3 for a trial period or is the idea of the cluster of users equally important to the study? With a GPS on board a lot of your offset time problems would be solved.

joeKel73

Yes it'd be great if Bus Eireann could give us a GPS feed or have their driver carry a handset sharing the bus position. We did try contacting BE initially but calls just kept looping through Dublin offices and voicemails which were un-returned. We have project deadlines for this so can't be held up like that.

Advantages of having BE transmitting the GPS;

• Confirmed location for each bus.
• Much easier to code as no need to filter out innacurate or old user data

Disadvantages of having BE transmitting the GPS;

• Very slow to get setup and convince BE of the system when it's still a work-in-progress
• Lifting this application and applying it to a new city would require lengthy talks again with the bus companies in those cities
• If the bus company wanted to try their own system, they would just switch this off
• I believe there were some union issues with this in Dublin with drivers being tracked as they work

TristanPeter wrote: »

With a GPS on board a lot of your offset time problems would be solved.

We want the system to run off the timetables as accurately as we can. The offset times are for the timetableing.

The live GPS positions, when available, will then be for confirming more accurately where the actual bus is.

joeKel73

Should have a working model of this app ready in the next couple of days with routes 9 and 3 on it. One problem though... we need a name?

Anyone got a good name for an android app to track and map buses around Galway along with routes and timetables...?

Mrs OBumble

Fred. (I've always wanted to call something Fred ... figure if I keep suggesting it often enough, someone will use if )

Seriously ... whatever name you come up with ... sleep on in, and test it out on a few people (foreigners and Irish) before 100% deciding.