DC on a roll with Circulator iPhone app

Transit

by David Alpert • October 1, 2009 11:04 am

DC's Office of the Chief Technology Officer strikes again. In June, OCTO, DDOT, and the Office of Planning created Where's My Bus, a Web app that lets you find out real-time positions of all Circulator buses. Today, they announced an iPhone app ("DC Circulator") to make it even easier for iPhone users to find Circulator stops and track their buses.

Photos courtesy of DDOT.

Where's My Bus and the iPhone app don't predict how long it will take for a bus to arrive, but do let you know if a bus is close, and keep tabs on its progress toward your stop. The iPhone app adds a map of the Circulator system and a native interface. The screen shots label one of the features "find closest stop," but it's not clear if that uses your GPS location or just lets you pick a stop from a menu. I've emailed DDOT to follow up, or one of you with an iPhone can download the app for 99¢ and post in the comments. Update: Once you pick a route, the app will identify the closest stop on a particular route using the phone's GPS.

An even better app would plot the buses on a real-time display, as NextBus does, but OCTO got this application done in a short time and probably with a very small quantity of developer resources. That's what a good technology outfit should be doing: finding the "low-hanging fruit" and launching many useful tools in short periods of time.

Even better yet would be an app that combines NextBus and Circulator locations, so you don't need two apps just because you sometimes ride a Metrobus and sometimes the Circulator. Maybe NextBus Information Systems could upgrade their iPhone app to include Circulator as well. This is one example of why Metro should release the NextBus position data in an API; if they did, maybe OCTO would put it into their app, or someone else could build an integrated tool.

Update: OCTO will also be releasing the source code for the app, so that other developers can add features in the future. Great move.

Update 2: If you want to download the app, it's listed as "DC Circulator" in the App Store.

14 comments — Share	— tags: Circulator, data openness, DC, OCTO, real-time bus, technology

OCTO goes open source with iPhone app (Oct 1, 2009)
NextBus DC iPhone app review (Jul 31, 2009)
Where's My Bus?: NextBus for Circulator (Jun 26, 2009)
DDOT: NextBus not the answer for Circulator (Mar 17, 2009)
Circulator thrombosis (Mar 16, 2009)

Comments

Or maybe one or both of them could make a damned Android version.

by mark on Oct 1, 2009 12:26 pm

I can't seem to find this on the App Store. Are you sure it's actually been released?

by Reid on Oct 1, 2009 12:40 pm

Never mind. I found it. You have to search under "DC Circulator".

It does seem to use GPS to find your closest stop, although you need to pick the route and the direction before it will show you which stop is closest.

The map is very smooth. I wish the Nextbus App had a map as slick and easy to use as that one. Really, if they just loaded the WMATA bus map pdf into the program and allowed you to access it directly from the first page it would be a nice improvement, particularly if they got rid of that irritating separation between the downtown DC map and the rest of DC map. That separation only makes sense for a printed map. They really ought to develop an electronic bus map.

by Reid on Oct 1, 2009 12:47 pm

How in the world did D.C. get to be so progressive and responsive to citizen requests? Still a long way to go, but stories like this give me hope.

by Adam L on Oct 1, 2009 12:51 pm

NextBus' hardware is already installed on Circulator vehicles. The information you see on the app "Where's My Bus?" is being generated by the hardware. All DDOT has to do is pay an extra $20/month to get the full NextBus system working for the entire Circulator fleet. Instead, they chose to try and make their own version.

by NextBus Rocks! on Oct 1, 2009 12:55 pm

How about adding in the name of the app in your article as it is listed in the App Store??? I had to figure out that it is called "DC Circulator" and not "Where's My Bus."

by Len on Oct 1, 2009 12:58 pm

Done.

by David Alpert on Oct 1, 2009 1:07 pm

Wow, this is an ugly and rudimentary app. Even the app icon is out of focus! I expect a little higher quality than this! The Circulator Map is also blurry. Here is a suggestion for version 2, which I hope comes quick!!! Integrate a Google Maps API for a you are here, you need to go there scenario and hire a graphic designer to make the app more visually appealing.

by Len on Oct 1, 2009 1:40 pm

@Len

A) Something's better than nothing.

B) They've already released the source code so that anybody who wants to improve on it can do so. I imagine cosmetic changes like the ones you are suggesting should be easier to accomplish with the nuts and bolts programming already established.

by Adam L on Oct 1, 2009 2:25 pm

Kind of disappointed. It's identical (in function) to the web-based version. The only difference is that it "feels" spiffier and somehow tells me what my nearest stop is (even though my phone didn't ask me if it could use my location). Still, I kind of feel like I just wasted a dollar. Plus the map is just a copy of the .pdf that's also available on the Circulator site, which I can access from my iphone. Seems like they could have put more effort into it - e.g., a live map would have been great, or maybe a "fastest way to the metro" function that would have selected the best stop/route to take based on bus location and travel distance, better yet even an estimate of "stop-to-stop" travel time.

Well, I guess the aesthetic is nice, so I shouldn't complain.

by SDJ on Oct 1, 2009 5:55 pm

This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. DC is wasting money on an application that tells you where the bus is - not when it's going to arrive in minutes but actually where it is on a map. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Have you people who are lauding this actually looked at WMATA's application - do you know it's available on your cellphone if you have a browser - put in www.nextbus.com. Dumb dumb dumb.

by BusMan on Oct 2, 2009 1:00 am

@BusMan: This is a great first start. Before you can determine when a bus will arrive, you must (1) know where it is and (2) have a historical record of traffic conditions to determine how fast the bus will move through traffic. Just looking at the buss current speed is not enough. You need to know for example that the bus is currently on a street with light traffic, but about the turn onto a street that is constant gridlock. It can take a long time to collect this data. In the meantime, DC has provided useful information to its customers. Once they have collected sufficient traffic information they can then start predicating arrival times. Even with as long as NextBus has been running for WMATA, it still doesnt have it right. Wednesday night NextBus predicated that the 6:40 number 2 bus would leave Ballston in 0 minutes for over 20 minutes. The bus was stuck in traffic and running about 15 minutes late. NextBus couldnt handle this. In this case, simply knowing where the bus was would have been more useful than that prediction.

On a side note, has anyone else noticed that NextBus seems to be more accurate when viewed at www.nextbus.com, then from Metros own website?

by James on Oct 2, 2009 10:02 am

Hello they could just upload all the data to Google Maps instead. WHy are they building an app? What a waste of effort. They're building a pretty Circulator app when they COULD use the same resources to move ALL the city's transit data to Google Maps, where I could just say, "hey, how do I get from point a to point b the fastest?"

by Henry Jones on Oct 8, 2009 12:22 am

Any idea where the source code can be found?

by Leon on Feb 10, 2010 8:22 am