Comments on: Ideas for the Sound Transit Website

By: Amar

Amar — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:57:30 +0000

Copy http://www.translink.ca and we will have a great website.

By: Sound Transit Web Site Review: They get an F- | Conversation Marketing Feed | Online Marketing Connect

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:54:36 +0000

[...] Sound Transit is soliciting comments and ideas to improve their web site. [...]

By: Jhenifer @ TransLink

Jhenifer @ TransLink — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:04:04 +0000

Well, to be fair, Seattle streetcars did have a newsletter in 1916, but for some reason, it didn't continue on. The very first Buzzer issue even mentions the Seattle newsletter by name: "The Electrogram"! Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Buzzer is the only streetcar bulletin that has kept on going to this day. Also, thanks for the kind comments about the blog :D

By: DCodomo

DCodomo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:08:21 +0000

OMG that site is horrible

By: Thad Curtz

Thad Curtz — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:18:29 +0000

I was talking to Intercity Transit, in Olympia, about getting their data onto Google Transit. They say Google’s in the middle of revamping the back end and won’t be adding any more systems until they’re finished.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:45:08 +0000

Wow, I was about to suggest something else but they changed it already. I used to notice that the urls didn’t really relate to the content of the page, like th567.xml or some nonsense name. Now they end in things like “I-90-Two-Way-Transit-and-HOV-Operations.xml”

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:03:30 +0000

Could ET and CT schedules ever be intergrated into Google Transit?

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:54:08 +0000

I REALLY want a mobile version of ST (or any other transit site). An app would work quite nicely as well if it includes integrated GPS.

By: barman

barman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:19:08 +0000

I’m pretty sure the blame can be given to Google on this one. A while ago I saw a ST technician post a message on the GTransit site asking how agencies can publish their info, and Google said the project is still on limited roll-out.

Technically, I think ST has everything done they need to get onto GTransit. Google is just taking transit agencies one at a time.

By: downintacoma

downintacoma — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:25:00 +0000

As soon as Sound Transit gets their act together and gets a computer guy to compile data into Google’s data schema and send it to them. (Given ST has a fairly straight-forward scheduling model, it doesn’t sound too tough…)

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/transit/partners/participate.html

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:20:10 +0000

Forget maps, let’s consistently get schedules!

By: Art

Art — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:32:56 +0000

Go Seasquawks Go! (somewhere else, unemployment lines, American football oblivion, the historical anals of nonsensical pasttimes, etc)…

By: justin

justin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:23:45 +0000

I have low expectations, we can’t even get maps of the routes posted at bus stops…

By: Mike Skehan

Mike Skehan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:47:01 +0000

It seems to me like a “reinventing the wheel” exercise.
With all the transit agencies now on line, with some honorable mentions above, it would be worthwhile to look at say the top 30 or so properties nationwide.
A good web site, is one that generates new customers, or for transit, new riders. Who’s new website did the best job of getting more people out of their cars, and onto public transit?
That would be the real test, then just coordinate with who ever designed their website, and replace the data sets.

By: Squints

Squints — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:57:23 +0000

Google Transit is great but only includes Metro. Anybody know when they might incorporate Sound Transit as well?

By: L. Smith

L. Smith — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:41:24 +0000

What’s really amazing, is how many details and conditions you can control through the Addition Options tab! http://skitch.com/ljsmith/ndnae/transit.511.org

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:41:47 +0000

Metro is beta testing an interactive map for their SE Seattle In Motion program. It still needs a lot of work.

http://your.kingcounty.gov/kcdot/transit/inmotion/se-seattle/

Too bad its pretty hard to find from the home page.

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:22:06 +0000

To put us to further shame:

The Buzzer blog is the web companion to the Buzzer newsletter, the free publication found on all Metro Vancouver transit vehicles since 1916.

They were way ahead of us with regular communication to customers.

The Bay Area’s 511 site is an example of an integrated information site for multiple agencies.

By: Zed

Zed — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:11:57 +0000

I like Berlin’s transit site; http://www.bvg.de/index.php/en/index.html

Everything the transit user needs is accessible from the start page. The layout is simple with large text and lots of pictures and graphics. Even though there are a multitude of transit agencies in Berlin the services are all unified in the presentation to the user, no need to worry about who runs your bus or train. I like the interface for the trip planner, it allows you to enter stops, intersection, coordinates, or select directly from a clickable map of the city. They also have a trip planner for mobile devices and a Windows version you can download and run offline.

I also like their stop timetable generator. Zurich also has a similar website. You can enter any stop in the network and it will generate a customized PDF timetable for your stop listing departure times for all routes serving that stop as well as travel times to and from that stop to major destinations on the routes. Here is an example of the output;

http://www.fahrinfo-berlin.de/Fahrinfo/bin/tb/query.bin/Knaackstr_berlinBerlin_alexander.pdf?pathinfo=/en&dwn=nt/ntw4iukk2isqh444_1_1.pdf

By: Sherwin

Sherwin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:05:57 +0000

Oh! And real-time information on the site as well.