Bus map interface revisited

The prototype for map interface for bus routes experienced some downtime and halt in further development. This spring the project received further enthusiasm from the bus company in Trondheim and Professor Amble at NTNU. They found the prototype interesting and wanted further exploration of different map integrations for bus route systems.

Mats Taraldsvik, a student at Geomatics NTNU volunteered to program several demo systems for different ideas.  This resulted in some excellent prototypes. Essentially the ideas developed differed a bit from the main idea of map interface. On this project the core idea was to integrate maps rather than use a map as the primary interface.

1. First test of communicating the bus route in a map.

The goal was to have the user provide the “to and from” address/bus stop then query the route answer engine (BussTUC) as well as display a map containing the bus route. The result can be found here:

http://geomatikk.eksplisitt.net/taraldsv/

2. Walking directions from arbitrary address to the nearest bus stop

Using Google Maps walking directions combined with the local database over bus stops the system is able to display the shortest walking path to and from the bus stop. Demo here: http://geomatikk.eksplisitt.net/taraldsv-gangkart/

3. Combining and refining bus route display

The bus route calculations done in 1. was to inaccurate using Google Maps driving directions, in addition it didn’t include the walking directions very well. This demo illustrates the possibilities of including an accurate bus route as well as (simple) walking directions. Demo here: http://geomatikk.eksplisitt.net/taraldsv-bussrute/

All of the above prototypes are intended as prototypes only – and all have large potential for improvement and further integration. However, I find the idea of integrating maps in this way very handy, especially for non bus-spotters (i.e. tourists, non-frequent bus’ers etc) which probably is (or should be) the target group for a bus route query system.

Of course I still think the idea of using  a map as the primary interface is a good idea which should be further explored. Mainly the problem relies on the data holders/owners of the bus route and stops. If this data is made freely available the step from prototype to “beta” could be made. (hint hint data owners…)

For more ideas and thoughts on the map/bus integration take a look at this wiki page: http://folk.ntnu.no/alexanno/projects/index.php/BussMap

For the sake of data sharing you can find a dump of the current bus stops and their coordinates on: http://geomatikk.eksplisitt.net/bussMap/data/ The data is formatted in CSV with the first line being header text. Coordinates are in WKT and EPSG:4326 (WGS84:lat/lon) accuracy or availability is never guaranteed.