Posts about Fairfax Connector

One of the obstacles for people who want to build trip planners, analyze what areas are accessible by transit, design visualizations, or create mobile apps is that our region has a great many transit agencies, each with their own separate data files.

Want to build a tool that integrates Metrobus, Fairfax Connector, and Ride On? You have to chase down a number of separate files from different agencies in a number of different places, and not all agencies offer open data at all.

The effect is that many tool builders, especially those outside the region, don't bother to include all of our regional systems. For example, the fun tool Mapnificent, which shows you everywhere you can reach in a set time from one point by transit, only includes WMATA, DC Circulator, and ART services. That means it just won't know about some places you can reach in Fairfax, Alexandria, Montgomery, or Prince George's.

Sites like this can show data for many cities all across the world without the site's author having to do a bunch of custom work in every city, because many transit agencies release their schedules in an open file format called the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). Software developer Matt Caywood has been maintaining a list of which local agencies offer GTFS files as well as open real-time data.

We've made some progress. Fairfax Connector, for example, recently started offering its own GTFS feed. But while DASH has one, you have to email them for it, and there's none for Prince George's The Bus.

The best way to foster more neat tools and apps would be to have a single GTFS file that includes all systems. As it turns out, there is such a beast. WMATA already has all of the schedules for all regional systems for its own trip planner. It even creates a single GTFS file now.

Michael Eichler wrote on PlanItMetro that they give this file to the regional Transportation Planning Board for its modeling, and offered it to STLTransit, who have been making animations showing all transit in a region across a single day.

This is one of many useful ways people could use the file. How about letting others get it? Eichler writes, "We are working to make this file publicly available."

Based on the STLTransit video, WMATA's file apparently includes 5 agencies that Caywood's list says have no public GTFS files: PG's TheBus, PRTC OmniLink and OmniRide, Fairfax CUE, Frederick TransIT, and Loudoun County Transit. It also covers Laurel Connect-a-Ride, Reston LINK, Howard Transit, the UM Shuttle, and Annapolis Transit, which aren't even on that list and which most software developers might not even think to look for even if they did have available files.

Last I heard, the obstacles to the file being public included WMATA getting permission from the regional transit agencies, and some trepidation by folks inside the agency about whether they should take on the extra work to do this or would get criticized if the file has any errors.

Let's hope they can make this file public as soon as possible. Since it already exists, it should be a no-brainer. If any regional agencies or folks at WMATA don't understand why this is good for transit, a look at this video should bring it into clear focus.

Fairfax Connector	ART	REX
Howard Transit	MTA (Baltimore)	Dash

See more in Hannaher's Lego set on Flickr.

	Schedule data			Real-time data
	Public GTFS	Shapes in GTFS	On Google	Tracking	Tracking API
Metrorail	Here		and Bing		Custom
Metrobus		Most1	and Bing		Custom
Circulator (DC)	WMATA2		WMATA2		Nextbus
ART (Arlington)	Here		In process		Connexionz
DASH (Alexandria)	Via email only3
Ride On (Montgomery)	Old?4				More info
The Bus (Prince George's)					Nextbus
MTA (Maryland) commuter bus	Here
MARC	Confusingly5			Here
Fairfax (County) Connector
CUE (Fairfax City)					Nextbus
Loudoun County Transit				Text/email alerts
PRTC
VRE	Unofficial6			Mix of GPS & manual7

¹ WMATA's GTFS file contains most Metrobus routes, but some paths cut diagonally across the grid over some long sections such as freeway or bridge segments of routes.

² Circulator route and schedule data is included as part of the WMATA GTFS feed. However, there are some quality issues such as route names.

³ DASH feed is not publicly available, but officials can provide it via email.

⁴ Ride On's feed no longer appears to be on their website. GTFS Data Exchange has cached a version from December 2010 which was apparently posted in a news release.

⁵ MARC lines are listed in the MTA Maryland feed as lines 300, 301, and 302, which doesn't very easily differentiate them for someone unfamiliar with their GTFS feed.

⁶ Someone not affiliated with VRE created a GTFS file in 2009, but it hasn't been updated since and VRE does not offer an official one.

⁷ VRE has a page with train status which lists some trains' positions through GPS and some from manual reports from the conductor.

What the columns mean

Creating public GTFS feeds (the 1st column) allows someone who's written an app to easily incorporate schedule and route data for a transit agency. GTFS has emerged as a national standard for representing transit feeds, and there's tremendous value in having as many agencies as possible support the same standard. That way, if someone writes an app in Chicago, they can make it work in Denver, Albany, or Miami at the same time.

Most of the transit agencies' feeds including the paths that the vehicles take, but some do not, like DASH. The 2nd column shows this information. Feeds without paths are still usable, but apps that visualize routes, like Transit Near Me, end up showing unsightly diagonal lines cutting across city blocks.

Agencies can also sign a contract with Google to have their routes and schedules on Google Maps. The 3rd column shows agencies which have done this. Some agencies put out their data files, but aren't willing to sign this contract because of indemnification or other clauses which Google unfortunately insists upon. On the flip side, some agencies sign up with Google but then don't publish the GTFS feed publicly.

The agency might provide it to those who ask, or might not, but this dissuades app creators from including this agency, and makes it harder for them to get regular updates. Every agency should strive to host a public and up-to-date GTFS feed on their site so that anyone building apps can easily incorporate that agency's services into the tool.

The other type of open data is real-time locations or predictions. To make this possible, agencies first have to deploy AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) technology on their buses or trains (the 4th column). The main obstacle is that this is somewhat expensive; a physical device has to go into each vehicle, and those devices then need some amount of maintenance over time.

Once an agency has tracking, it's relatively simple to offer a computer interface for apps to access and tell riders about this information (the 5th column). Most of the agencies with tracking offer such an interface, but while Ride On, MARC, and Loudoun Transit all have public tracking sites that provide some services to riders, but no way for other apps to tap into the information those sites contain.

What agencies can do

Agencies with red X's on this chart can start thinking about how to provide schedule and/or real-time open data. Creating GTFS files isn't extremely difficult, though it does require some staff time to actually do it. For agencies that use scheduling software, the manufacturers of that software often offer modules to export data as GTFS as well.

Some GTFS feeds could benefit from quality fixes. For example, WMATA's Metrorail GTFS file doesn't show the specific paths trains take, and paths are missing for a few bus routes. The "Transparent Metro Data Sets" Application Programming Interface (API), a special interface WMATA created to offer access to much of its data, does include the correct paths. But many people develop apps to access GTFS files for multiple cities. It's much less likely they will put in extra development effort to specifically pull just these route shapes from this unique API.

The Circulator's routes are part of the WMATA GTFS feed, which makes things even easier for apps than having to download a separate feed. One problem is that the route names are all cryptic: there's "DCDGR" for the Dupont-Georgetown-Rosslyn Circulator, or "DC98" for the route which replaced the former 98 bus. Those are fine for internal systems inside the agencies, but they aren't very clear to riders.

Agencies which have provided their data to Google but don't offer the feeds publicly (like DASH, Ride On, and MARC) should post those feeds on their websites and publicly link to the feeds. They are already creating the GTFS files for Google, so it's a trivial step to also let others download the same files.

WMATA also has much of the route data for other local bus systems in the region as well, which it uses in its trip planner. Agencies which don't have GTFS files can give WMATA permission to include their data in its GTFS feed, as the Circulator does.

Agencies with AVL systems already on their vehicles should set up APIs to give apps access to the locations or predictions, and agencies without AVL can work toward getting the budget necessary to deploy AVL.

What others can do

Transit industry associations and vendors which sell technology to transit agencies can all encourage open data to be part of any contract. Vendors can encourage agencies to open their data and provide services to do so, and associations can encourage agencies to ask their vendors for these services.

The industry can also help move toward a clear standard for bus tracking. GTFS has become a standard for schedule and route data because large numbers of agencies went ahead and offered GTFS files. But there is not yet a consensus around what format to use to offer real-time predictions.

WMATA built its own API which provides the data in a certain format. Circulator, The Bus, and CUE all use Nextbus for tracking, which has its own API. ART uses another service, Connexionz. This unfortunately means that anyone building a real-time application and wants to incorporate multiple services has to support at least 3 different APIs.

There are efforts to create such standards, like GTFS-Realtime, but this hasn't realized the same widespread adoption as GTFS, nor has any other standard.

It's still possible to build apps without a standard, and the Mobility Lab's real-time screen project does connect to all 3 different systems in our region. But that requires extra work, not just for the Mobility Lab but for every other app creator who wants to offer predictions for multiple transit agencies.

The easier we make it to build apps, the more we'll get. Ultimately, it would be great for one standard to emerge, and for the various vendors like Nextbus to agree to all offer data to apps in that same standard format.

Update: Commenter intermodal commuter pointed out the real-time status page for VRE. It combines some train positions from GPS and some from manual reports from conductors. There is not an API to access the data. I've corrected the chart.

Update 2: Commenter Adam noted that MARC is actually contained in the MTA Maryland GTFS file, but listed only as routes 300, 301, and 302, which we didn't realize were not commuter buses upon examining the feed. But you can see the MARC lines on Transit Near Me (for example, center around Union Station).

Also, ACCS Web Manager Joe Chapline posted a status update about ART's efforts to get into Google Transit; according to Chapline, this was delayed for a time due to contract issues, and now is awaiting action by the Google legal department, which I know from past personal experience is often understaffed and backlogged.

Fairfax's county government offices are difficult to access by public transit. Only two Fairfax Connector routes serve them. But not all residents can afford to or want to own a car, and those who can't or won't drive are at a decided disadvantage in being able to fully participate in society.

I had to visit the county seat two years ago to register to vote in Virginia; my permanent address was then my parents' house in Kingstowne. I had to register in person during office hours, but my parents both worked. Living in the District and lacking access to a car, I took the Metro to Vienna and then took a Fairfax Connector to the county office.

I had never been to the county offices before and I wasn't familiar with the area. The stops weren't announced, so I had to be extra careful about when to get off. I ended up getting off the bus too early and had to walk the rest of the way.

When I left the office, I walked to what I thought was the stop for the bus back to the Metro. The bus stop sign didn't have the route number. Suburban streets also aren't marked as clearly as city streets, so finding the intersection where my bus stopped wasn't as easy.

It turns out I was at the wrong bus stop, but as the bus approached, I was able to hustle to the correct stop, which luckily was nearby. If the stop flag had been marked, I would have known at which stop I should wait. If I had missed the bus, I would have had to wait at least 30 minutes for the next one.

When traveling after dark, it can be hard to identify bus stops while on the bus. Announcing the stops would make it easier for riders to know where they are. Stop announcements don't always work, but having them fail sometimes is better than not having them at all.

Adding route numbers to bus stops signs would require a minimal investment, but would make it much easier for riders to know if they are in the right place. Fairfax Connector route numbers are often shown on shelters, where they exist, but not on stop flags. Metrobus, Montgomery's Ride On and Arlington's ART, on the other hand, show route numbers on almost all stop flags. Ride On's even show the route's ultimate destination, so you don't find yourself on the correct route but going the wrong way.

Automated stop announcements require that buses be equipped with GPS, which is a bigger investment. Ride On is piloting real-time tracking, which would be useful for the Connector. GPS tracking could also bring NextBus' ability to predict how many minutes until the bus arrives to Fairfax Connector riders.

More attractive, easier to understand bus service can make suburban communities easier to navigate and reduce the need for driving. These two wayfinding improvements won't suddenly bring residents out of their cars. But they can make life easier for current bus riders and make buses a better option for those hesitant to ride.

My cousin loves her car—a 2009 Infiniti G37 coupe. But her enthusiasm to drive was significantly curbed in June when she accidentally rear-ended someone in heavy rush-hour traffic for the second time in two months. Not only did it give her jitters behind the wheel—her insurance payment doubled.

Knowing that taking transit saves money, burns calories, and frees up time, I decided to make The Ask. Since I was commuting downtown for the summer, I suggested we take the bus to the Metro from the stop right outside her development in central Tysons Corner. Before the accidents, she would have laughed it off, but instead she said yes.

Now that my cousin's been riding a while, I asked her a few questions.

Has switching to Metro saved you money?

The cost of using Metro per month is $196 (bus + train). Parking at the office is $270/month plus $284/month in gas. So my total monthly savings is $358. Additional pluses are less mileage on the car as well as wear and tear on the tires. Also there is less chance of getting in an accident (my personal favorite).

Cons: I don't love being stuck at the mercy of bus and train schedules. Also, driving can take less time. The 11-mile commute by car ranges from 30 minutes on the best day to 90+ on bad days. My transit commute takes about 50 minutes, door-to-door. Plus, I like to have the option to stop on my way home which you cannot do as easily on public transportation.

Pros: On the other hand, it's less stressful than driving. I used to arrive at work all stressed out from the traffic delays, constant construction and really poor driving going on around me. I can work on my way in as I get service for the BlackBerry on the bus and train.

I've found the buses clean and air conditioned. The timetables seem to be pretty accurate. And having two different bus routes within 1 block of my home is convenient.

The bus drop-off at West Falls Church is covered so I don't get wet when it's raining. A dedicated, separate entrance to the train platform is provided from the bus area as well. The vast majority of the time I even manage to get a seat both ways.

To top things off, I can get a pre-tax benefit through my firm's WMATA SmartBenefits program.

In general, it was easier. While there were delays on transit, the traffic seemed way worse.

The day of the earthquake, it took almost twice as long due to the lower speed limit on tracks during the structural inspections. On the Thursday that Tropical Storm Lee blew through, I waited an hour for the bus—which I expected. But I equated traffic around Tysons to what one would see on Christmas Eve: gridlock. I was very glad to be on the bus.

My advice would be to try it for a week, take the time to do the math and calculate the savings. And keep an open mind.

I begrudgingly (still) have to admit I am a public transportation convert. Check back with me in November when the cold and snow has settled in.

Crossposted at The Durable Human.

Like for Metro, the options look pretty limited. The transfer of the Dulles toll road and revenues to MWAA, the airports authority that operates Dulles and National airports, in exchange for capital funding for Metrorail, eliminated much of the funding for bus service in the corridor. These service cuts mean that Fairfax predicts a 12% cut in ridership in FY2010, and a 7% cut in FY2011.

This bus service is extremely valuable to me and my family. Driving in the corridor is often slower than taking the bus. Adding another car to the roads can only make traffic worse. This bus is worth at least $5 per trip to us. Fairfax has proposed a fare increase to $1.50 per trip. If that's not enough to save bus routes from being cut, I would prefer a larger increase to save the routes.

The money from the toll road was supposed to support bus service until rail service opened; it's not clear why MWAA was able to cut off the funding so abruptly before the rail was complete to Wiehle Avenue. Hopefully once rail service opens, Fairfax can restore local bus feeder service to their new rail station in Reston. But two years of little to no bus service may have people pick up the driving habit instead.

Mr. Mounier also consulted with the homeowner's association. Only 16 people provided comments, 10 in favor of moving the stop and 6 opposed. That doesn't sound like a consensus either way, and when there's disagreement, doing what's better for more bus riders should trump what's good for one homeowner.

Moving the stop, by the way, does hurt riders. Mr. Mounier confirmed what Ms. San Jose also told me, that most of the bus riders come from Pinecrest Road to the northwest, and now have to walk farther to this bus stop. About 10 riders use this particular bus stop daily, which is part of Fairfax Connector Route 553 that goes to West Falls Church Metro.

The residents who supported moving the stop, other than the homeowner, cited a perceived unsafe situation at the intersection, where children often cross. However, Mr. Mounier said that they interviewed a crossing guard there, who hadn't observed any issues. As with roundabouts, people often think an intersection with multiple modes interacting is "unsafe," but in many cases it's actually the reverse.

And one of the largest potential drivers of a safety problem, real or perceived, is the illegally parked car; by forcing the bus to stop farther from the curb, cars have to divert to the opposite lane of traffic to go around the bus, whereas the bus should be able to pull out of the travel lane entirely.

Mr. Mounier confirmed that no law prohibits the son from parking in front of someone else's house. Residents in such neighborhoods tend to get territorial about the frontage in front of their houses, even though legally it's all public space. That leads people to feel they have the right to park there, as in the case of this homeowner, or the right to prevent others from parking there.

After speaking with Mr. Mounier, it made sense why they moved the stop given their constraints: a homeowner parking illegally whom they couldn't effectively stop; a legal liability rule that still faults the bus for any collisions even with the illegally parked car; and residents who think it's unsafe whether or not it is. Unfortunately, when one homeowner is determined to get in the way of the buses, the riders lose out.

The homeowner had tried to get the stop moved before, but FCDOT said no; only after two incidents did they feel they had to act. It's too bad that a homeowner who wants to displace a bus stop can simply do so by parking illegally long enough to generate collisions or even create an unsafe situation where none existed. When DC tickets illegal parkers reporters may talk about how it's "picking your pocket," but that kind of enforcement just ensures the rights of riders don't get trampled.

FCDOT says that most public comments favored moving the stop, and claims the new location is "both safe and accessible." They will also retrain the guide dog.

The homeowner and Ms. San Jose also disagree about whether the son's car had been parked illegally. The law prohibits parking within 30 feet of the bus stop. Ms. San Jose says her measurements show there is just about 30 feet available, meaning the son must be violating the zone, while the homeowner claims there are 47 feet available, which leaves more than enough room to park legally. Ms. San Jose asked the County to measure the distance, but they did not.

It's unclear why the son can't simply park somewhere else on the street. As a suburban area, there's plenty of street parking. In many suburbs, homeowners get cranky about people parking in front of their houses, even though the street belongs to all. The son can't park in the driveway so that the mother can get her car out in the morning; it's also unclear why they can't just switch cars, or switch the locations of the cars at night ahead of time. Is a tiny bit of convenience for them worth inconvenience for all bus riders?

It's disappointing that Fairfax planners seem to be prioritizing one homeowner's desire to monopolize public space over the general good. It's not the homeowner's curb, it's the County's, and the homeowner certainly knew about the bus stop when she bought the house.

If 30 feet isn't enough for a bus to pull to a curb, the stop should be wider. If the car is parking illegally, it should get a ticket. And if a homeowner doesn't like buses stopping in front of his or her house, County officials should listen, but ultimately do what's best for the greatest number. Perhaps they think that's what they're doing, but from the emails Ms. San Jose forwarded, there's no evidence of that. I've left a message for Mr. Mounier to find out if he has a better explanation.