New “Google Transit Tomorrow” will predict upcoming service outages

This article was posted as an April Fool’s joke.

Google has announced a new service, Google Transit Tomorrow, which will provide email alerts when Metrorail trains are going to break down.

Riders can get directions using Google Maps or subscribe to a particular route via email. Google Transit Tomorrow will then suggest which trains to ride to avoid getting stuck, or recommend alternate routes by bus, bike or car.

A single Google software engineer developed Transit Tomorrow using the free “20% time” Google gives all engineers to work on any project of their choosing. The idea grew out of Google Flu Trends, which has been able to predict outbreaks of flu faster than public health authorities by noticing when users search for “flu symptoms” and other symptom-related terms.

“We realized the same could work for transit breakdowns,” said Avichal Antuan, Product Manager for Google Transit Tomorrow. Google Transit Tomorrow combines over 200 signals including searches for “screeching wheels” and other queries. Google tracks the amount of time elapsed between when users log out of Gmail at home and log in again at work, to identify when deteriorating vehicles may be slowing the transit trip by small amounts that presage breakdowns. The service also monitors the background noise in calls made by users with G1 phones, applying a complex digial signal processing algorithm to detect rumbles and screeches characteristic of imminent mechanical failure.

Google Transit Tomorrow then combines the various factors using a complex series of machine learning algorithms to identify likely breakdowns. The algorithms constantly adjust based on actual incidents, which Google can detect from tracking blog posts and queries for “WMATA complaint form”.

Users who wish to get transit directions without Google Transit Tomorrow’s estimates can always opt out by pressing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on the transit directions interface.

Tip: Michael.