Open Trip Planner on iPhone

In response to Apple dropping transit directions from iOS 6, OpenPlans wants your support to fund development of OpenTripPlanner Mobile, a mobile application that not only provides transit directions but also allows you to combine walking, biking, and bike share in the same journey. The app will provide transit directions for most transit agencies in North America (and eventually, the world). According to their preliminary coverage map, the Puget Sound and Cascadia region appears to be well covered, including the ferries. It is essentially the OneBusAway of transit trip planning. They need to raise $25,000 by August 18.

OpenPlans are the people behind the fabulous Streetfilms, TriMet’s Interactive System Map, and New York City’s adaptation of OneBusAway. If you are disappointed that Apple is not including transit directions in the next version of iOS 6 or you would like to support development of an independent trip planner not controlled by Apple or Google that anyone can freely use or improve upon, you should help fund this project. I personally did and invite you to do the same.

22 Replies to “Help Put Transit Directions Back on the iPhone”

  2. You mess with a walled garden and you get shut out!

    But seriously, by only supporting iOS, they are severely limiting their market. If they were to support Android, I’d donate in a heartbeat. Google Maps is pretty darn good, but it’d be nice to have an open source transit direction alternative. Especially if the directions take into account current on time schedules of buses when planning a trip.

    2. They do say they will be making an Android app after the initial development, but are prioritizing iOS because of the total loss of functionality.

      1. Also: “depending on the success of this campaign we may be able to accelerate our schedule for an Android version”

        Seems legit based on the fact that Google already has decent transit directions on Android. That said, their trip planning engine looks stunning. Check out what they did for NYC’s Bikeshare.

    1. Yeah, if You care about transit and apple doesn’t, why give apple your money…?

      3. Also, if you want to give Google or Microsoft your money, that’s your choice. I chose to give money to this project (which is not Apple, by the way) because I’d like to have a good independent transit tool that’s not tied to any of these big platform owners.

      5. What I meant to say was that while I care about transit support when choosing a mobile device, I also care about other things like the overall user experience and the hardware design. I’m not going to abandon many other good things about one platform simply because transit is no longer in the system’s map app. But that might be the last straw for some people.

      6. Usability? Isn’t this a post based on the fact apple removed something you ostensibly used from the product?

        I’ve never bought an apple product, though I have been given a mac book and two ipads (as well as a bunch of ipods). But removing transit would be the sort of thing that would keep me from ever buying one.

      7. Yes and true. Though I’d still support the project even if Apple didn’t remove the feature or made its own. If you cared about transit why would you not support this?

    2. Windows phone doesn’t have transit directions built in either. You need to download a third party app like HopStop, which you can also do on the iPhone.

  4. I’ll be happy to donate $5 toward this. Great feature for everyone and all platforms in the near future.

  5. Once upon a time there was a beta of “OBA Blue”, which was OneBusAway + trip planning powered by an Open Trip Planner instance. I wonder if this is based on that code?

    For that matter, since Sound Transit’s trip planner is based on Open Trip Planner, I wonder if it would be possible to ‘rehome’ OBA Blue’s code to use ST’s instance for trip planning, and then release the app publically. Hmm…

    1. Another nice itegration would be GPS location of buses. Any reason why OBA hasn’t taken that data from KCM and implemented directly into the app?

      1. Woks fine with PT (including PT operated ST*) and IT. Maybe Metro being stubborn about it?

        * Though often times, in my experience, it can’t find the southbound 590 series buses in Downtown

      2. Metro is still converting buses and has a legacy feed that causes problems for OBA. I’d wager they’re holding off until that conversion is done. I would if I were involved in that project. I’d bet anything they can’t wait to rip out all of the code/processes behind the legacy AVL system.

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