Posts about GTFS

WMATA just put out a press release that they and Google "will make a joint announcement about technology improvements that will benefit Metrorail and Metrobus riders" tomorrow. They don't say what the announcement will be, but there happens to be one service WMATA and Google have been working on for a long time now, for which they signed a contract in July and said was "very close" in March... and which has suddenly become available for riders.

The service has also been available on Bing Maps for some time.

Since the MTA Maryland buses and light rail and MARC are all on Google already, you can now also use Google Maps to plan a trip from Baltimore to DC using multiple transit services. Here's a somewhat complex example, with 6 different options; one even uses the Amtrak Northeast Regional.

The DC Circulator and Montgomery County's Ride On are also on Google already.

We're just two days shy of 29 months since Michael Perkins launched our first email petition to ask WMATA to take this step for riders. Michael kept doggedly on the story, FOIAing other cities' agreements to rebut arguments about legal obstacles. There was a lot of resistance from within the agency and from some members of the Board, but other sympathetic staff and Board members pushed this forward, and now it's a reality.

Thanks, WMATA!

Disclosure: I used to work for Google, but had no involvement with Google Maps. I no longer own any Google stock and have no other financial interest in Google.

I know that technological projects sometimes take longer than expected and problems can crop up. However, WMATA management has continuously remained very tight-lipped about their lack of progress, and did not respond to a request yesterday.

It certainly seems as though this is simply not getting much attention at all. If it is, and there are just unforeseen issues, or if Google is the one being difficult, it would certainly behoove WMATA to explain these facts.

The agreement was signed in July, and the data made high-quality enough to release publicly in the fall. Now, according to Sarles, they are working to prepare the data to upload to Google.

In response to a question from Councilmember Tommy Wells at the oversight hearing this morning, Sarles noted that Metro routes and schedules do appear on Microsoft's Bing. What's so much harder about getting on Google?

A comment from Chris Zimmerman last July continues to seem most prescient. He said this project seemed to be "asymptotically approaching" completion. So far, that's still as true now as it was then.

Disclosure: I used to work for Google, but had no involvement with Google Maps. I no longer own any Google stock and have no other financial interest in Google.

The indemnification paragraph from the boilerplate agreement appears to be missing, which means that WMATA would not be held liable for any mistakes caused by Google and did not agree to legally defend Google if they were sued. This was one of WMATA's biggest objections to signing the boilerplate agreement. We first reported that Chicago was able to remove this indemnification from their agreement.

Either party may terminate the agreement, unlike the boilerplate agreement, which only gives that option to Google. The agreement provides rights to both WMATA and Google where the boilerplate agreement only provides them to Google.

The agreement WMATA got looks like the best they could hope for. It's balanced and removed the features WMATA found most objectionable. WMATA's status as one of the largest transit agencies in the country allowed them to negotiate from a better position than most agencies.

I haven't been able to get an update on the actual Google Transit release date.

This feature is especially useful to people that are unfamiliar with the bus system, because it will let people see where their bus stop is while they are planning their trip.

Much of the time, the only information available is a line on a small map in a PDF file, and with Metro reducing the number of stops, it's more important to know where the stops are. For some routes like the DC Circulator, the distance between stops can be a half mile, so walking to the route and then walking along the route until you get to the stop is not ideal.

WMATA has a feature right now which helps in this regard. Under the "Rider Tools" section of the website, you can find the "Service Nearby" link, which allows you to find bus stops near an address or landmark.

This produces a text description the stops in the database, which works for some riders, but it doesn't give the same contextual clues that seeing the stop in a photo would. Some riders are good at navigating according to landmarks, so telling them their stop is at the corner of "NW P and NW 18TH ST" is less helpful than "in front of the gray and tan building next to the CVS."

The Street View page will also show the next transit trips scheduled at the stop, which can give customers a sense of how frequently the service runs. If you click on a bus line shown, it opens a page specifically for that bus line, pointing out the schedule at that time of day, what other services run from that stop and some nearby stops that might have other service you're interested in.

This is the kind of customer information that WMATA wouldn't be able to afford to develop by themselves. Google has taken the information made available to them by transit agencies in a standard, open format, and has improved its usability for customers. Hopefully, WMATA will be able to keep their scheduled January 2011 launch of the Google Transit service.

Reader James has been tenaciously asking about this, and today got a response from Victor Grimes in the IT department:

We are still working with Google to ensure that our data is completely accurate before the information is released to the public, a process that entails scrubbing and reverifying all data. This required us to wait for the completion of our BUS Stop Data Repository reconciliation, which was accomplished on November 30.

We are now in the process of updating the database that holds the Metro website Trip Planner. With all updated information and the addition of the Metrobus schedule changes that will take effect in late December, we anticipate going live with Google Transit in mid-January.

I'm not sure I agree with WMATA's need to double and triple check all data before going live, since after all the same data is already on the trip planner and has been for years, but this is very welcome news.

It's important to separate out the two issues: a deal with Google, and publishing the data publicly in an open source way.

The GTFS format, while it was developed by Google in partnership with Portland's TriMet transit agency, is an open standard, usable by anyone who wants to publish their data. The specification for the standard is very basic and available to everyone. There is no proprietary technology involved. Governments do not have to sign any kind of agreement with Google or anyone else to publish data in the format.

Fairfax is reluctant to sign an agreement with Google that required indemnity. While we disagree with this decision, we understand their reluctance. But this only applies to participating in Google Transit, not to publishing data, which as above is something the county could do simultaneously or could not do at all.

WMATA has been publishing a feed for months without any Google agreement, and application developers have been able to use that data, though its non-open source friendly legal terms have prevented others. Fairfax could publish its data with no indemnification and no restrictions, as many other agencies have done, with no contract that its lawyers could object to.

If they publish data in the GTFS format, would Fairfax be asked to publish data in other formats? It's possible, but not likely. The GTFS format has become the de facto standard for publishing open transit data. It is very unlikely that many potential users of Fairfax's information would be unsatisfied with GTFS and demand another format. And if someone did, Fairfax would be completely within their rights as good public stewards to refuse requests that place unnecessary burdens on staff to produce formats that are not very popular.

The other issue is Google Transit. At the recent EMBARQ panel, DC CTO Bryan Sivak said that getting Circulator onto Google Transit simply required the will to push through the obstacles from lawyers on both sides. Lawyers' job is to raise all possible concerns about any contract. Sometimes, the job of those working with the lawyers is to determine which of these concerns are too trivial and outweighed by the public interest.

On the other hand, Google really ought to stop asking for indemnification. They don't demand this from Web sites that want to be listed in their index, for example. Open source software developers have been working on OpenTripPlanner, an alternative trip planning system that doesn't require any contracts and indemnification, only open data feeds.

If most US transit agencies release their data in the open GTFS format without license restrictions, before long riders everywhere will be able to plan trips, track their buses and trains, and access other useful transit information using completely open tools that aren't dependent on Google or anyone else. That's good for everyone who lives and works in Fairfax County.

On customer service reliability, Metro is going to start publishing performance metrics, similar to the performance metrics reported by Chicago Transit. And not just to the Board, to the public too. There will be an annual summary in September, as well as monthly updates starting in June. This is something I've wanted for a long time since I found the CTA metrics. The exact measurements have not been selected, but on-time performance and mean time before failure are likely candidates.

The elevator and escalator division will have help from consultants, performing a top-to-bottom review of the maintenance and repair procedures. Accountability will be enhanced by dividing up the population of escalators and elevators among various teams, and then tracking the reliability of each team to see who is following best practices, and who can improve.

For improvements in Metro's financial stability, nothing new came up that has not been discussed at length here at GGW and in the press.

I asked him about the progress on obtaining an agreement with Google Transit. Previously, a Metro spokesperson had said that the negotiations were progressing but he wasn't able to say how much longer it would be. Mr. Sarles bragged about how he liked the Google Transit service and how his former agency, New Jersey Transit, beat New York's MTA to the punch. He promised to ask his staff about progress and wrote a note to follow up.

I also asked him about whether Metro could release the data collected by NextBus as a public API so other developers could write apps for mobile devices or other ends. He commented that it sounded like something they could look into, and scribbled another note.

I brought up the number of latent failures in the system and how it's affecting Metro's ability to see problems with the system. Sarles declined to comment, citing the ongoing NTSB investigation since that was the context of my comment.

Finally, I asked about some of the customers who have had problems getting an adequate response from customer service representatives, either never getting a response other than the automated initial response. One friend of mine who reported that his bus showed up late with a driver who had to ask the customers for directions. All he got from a line supervisor was a mention that he should be grateful he had a bus at all.

Mr. Sarles shook his head at that one, and said that after they've tried the normal customer service route, if they're still unsatisfied they could email him. He wouldn't directly offer his email address but it's not hard to figure out. [First initial][Last name]@wmata.com is the general pattern.

When asked about whether he's yet ridden a Metrobus, he got a little defensive. He's been a bus rider since he was growing up, and rode the bus with previous transit agencies. He just hasn't had a chance to ride with this agency yet.

Before people recognized his face, he was able to act as a "secret shopper" on the system, observing customer interaction with police, station managers and other employees. Now that people recognize him, he said he often discusses Metro service while riding the train to and from his home in Pentagon City.