Planning a trip using public transit is a bit of a crapshoot in
most major cities, and Toronto is no exception.
Which route from point A to B is the quickest at a particular
time of day, or has the least number of transfers, or involves the
least amount of walking? Users have to take their chances because
this type of nitty-gritty information isn't typically
available.
But that situation may change soon.
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is considering development
of an online trip planner, and is eyeing a free new service offered
by Google, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine giant.
Dubbed the Transit Trip Planner, Google completed a pilot
project in December 2005 using data provided by TriMet, the public
transit agency for the city of Portland and nearby border towns in
Oregon.
The system is the brainchild of a Google employee's personal
project, which the company encourages to nurture innovative
ideas.
The Trip Planner allows transit users to plop in a starting and
destination point, and choose from a number of options: quickest
route, fewest transfers, bus vs. subway, and so on.
"The system can also compare transit costs versus using a car
for that amount of time," says Megan Quinn, spokesperson for
Google.
Google's trip planner is currently only available on PCs, but
the company is eyeing cell phone delivery in the future.
"It makes sense to deliver it on mobiles, and it's something
we're working on," says Quinn.
Google plans to expand the system this year with data for other
major cities, and has been in discussions with several transit
agencies, including the TTC.
"This will be a slow rollout," warns Quinn. "It is a complex
process, as we are [taking] what has historically been paper charts
and time schedules in many cities, and converting that into
structured data that we can run our algorithms on."
But no such torturous conversion of data was necessary in
Portland's instance, says Bibiana McHugh, IT manager of geographic
information systems (GIS) at TriMet.
"All our information is digital, as we have an extensive Oracle
relational database," says McHugh. "It took perhaps an hour to get
Google what it needed for the pilot in the file format we agreed
on."
TriMet developed its own Web-based trip planner in 2001, which
the agency has been refining over the years with related
information such as bus reroutes, rider alerts, and local
amenities.
But when Google started offering Google Maps, it
occurred to McHugh that the company might be interested in adding
transit trip planning capability to the product, which offers
driving instructions.
"Why couldn't people plan transit trips from anywhere in the
country just as easily as they could get driving instructions? It
was an obvious next step," she says.
Serendipity was in the air, as when McHugh called Google to find
out if there were any plans to develop that idea, not only did she
find out that a project was already underway, but that Google
needed real GIS data to test and refine its system.
Many other developers at other companies were also working on
similar public transit-related projects, and running into that same
road block.
"They were all screen-scraping instead of using real data. So we
made our data available to them all via a Web service," says
McHugh.
Google's trip planner, she says, fills an important need to
centralize public transit information across North America.
"There is no national trip planner that allows people to plan
trips from one city to another. Ours covers off the Portland region
only, Chicago's covers its own, and so on. We see Google's trip
planner as another tool for our customers, especially those who
travel from city to city."
But should a city without a GIS infrastructure in place at its
public transit system look to Google's trip planner instead of
developing its own? As in other IT spheres, control is an important
consideration.
"We have a responsibility to provide that information to our
customers," says McHugh. "TriMet would be uncomfortable relying on
Google to take on that responsibility. We have no control over the
service."
Developing a system similar to Google's trip planner is just one
of many technology upgrade issues that the Toronto Transit
Commission (TTC) is struggling with, says John Cannon, CIO at the
TTC.
"We don't have GIS now. But we have a number of initiatives that
require a common GIS/GPS technology base," he says. For example,
the TTC is also considering electronic signpost technology that
provides real-time information on the timing and arrival of the
next bus."
"We want to do a geospatial review first to figure out what kind
of core infrastructure we need," says Cannon.
The TTC is in the process of replacing and upgrading a number of
legacy systems, including the scheduling system that would feed
information into an online trip planner.
"We're updating that system with GIS technology, but we've had a
few hiccups because we're trying to marry new technology with old,"
he says.
He says the geospatial review to determine the core GIS/GPS
requirements will be completed before the end of 2006, and
upgrading the scheduling and communications system with the new
technology is slated for completion in 2008.
"Our Commission is anxious to move on this," said Cannon.
The possibilities of GPS technology are tantalizing, but the TTC
is mindful of taxpayers' dollars.
"As soon as GPS came on the market, the number and types of
applications possible grew exponentially. Your mind starts
expanding with these things, but the TTC's infrastructure is old.
We don't want to go too far until we've understood what it entails.
If you make a mistake, it can be very expensive."
icon.
