If the TTC doesn’t reply in 7 days, email followup

I do think I’ve sent an email to the TTC before about this — I know I’ve twittered the bigwigs — but just in case, I’m writing this post as a note to myself that if like the last time I sent a note, the TTC doesn’t reply in 7 days, I should email followup at ttc dot ca. (A part of me wonders if that’s what people do anyway.)

Why the TTC doesn’t just email me a confirmation number and get back to me in two weeks without a further followup email, I’ve no idea. Their phone line, 416-393-3030 just disconnects when I try to call it, it’s so busy.

Anyway, here’s what I sent:

The TTC has outdated info published at http://toronto.ca/open as explained at my blog: http://blog.lsta.me/?p=68

And rather than come up with your own format, why not adopt the General Transit Feed Specification standard at http://code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specification.html that YRT, Hamilton, and many, many other transit systems use? It’s 100% Google Maps compatible, and even NextBus uses it (in a non-standard way) to publish GPS information.

PLEASE contact me, I’ve written the free TTC Mobile iPhone app launched last Dec and was at the Open Data Lab where TTC employees shared the data, and I’ve been upset that no one has since listened to developers. My app is the only one on the app store with up-to-date info because it doesn’t TRY to get the right data, it just reformats the ttc.ca website — which has an incredible database behind the scenes. I’d be happy with a database dump of THAT if it were possible.

Thanks,

Louis St-Amour

Here’s hoping I get a reply, like the (so far fantastic) YRT has. And why isn’t Metrolinx returning my emails, I wonder? Maybe I’ve been trying to contact the wrong people. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know! Good transit data nirvana is near, folks — lets stay positive!

TTC Mobile now downloaded 4500+ times :-)

I’m very happy to say that TTC Mobile has so far been downloaded at least 100-150 times each day by Canadians (and many others). I’ve received 140 or so feedback emails, of which 40 actually said something more than “Sent from my iPhone” (oh well!).

I’ve met quite a few new people on Twitter, talked via email to transit geeks and transit employees, and compulsively looked for reviews and feedback on the iTunes Store listing. I’m disappointed at all the 1-star ratings, but I figure that happens to any free app — and the 9 largely positive App Store reviews outweigh the negative.

Here’s a breakdown of the download stats:

I do intend to make an offline version — I want it now myself, because I’ve grown impatient with that silly loading screen, “faster” though it may be. I’ve decided to allow for imperfect data, and I’ll be sure to say that — e.g. “* this data is cached from yesterday”.

I’m talking now with YRT, and I’d love to get GO/Metrolynx on board with any kind of data sharing. I’ve kind of given up on the TTC, but maybe if I contact Customer Service, I’ll get passed along to someone who can help me get the correct data. At this point I suspect a web browser is the only way to get decent data out of any transit service, and I’ve felt quite frustrated these past few weeks.

Still, the positive feedback helps keep my spirits up. Keep it coming, and suggestions for improvements. If anyone has a new app icon or loading screen to offer, feel free! Any ideas on how I can add social features? Dream big

Information Visualization and Art

For those who love Hans Rosling’s TED videos, here’s a new PDF called “Information Visualization and Art” by Stephen Few, who’s written a few good books on visualization.

Now, the obvious objection to this piece is art for its own sake, and that’s a valid point. But if the goal is to both look pretty AND communicate something new, more care should be taken.

The PDF looks at Ben Fry’s fun “visualization” of US health care costs (mentioned on page 2). If you get bored, scroll to pages 8-10 to see Few’s ultimate result after such experimentation in Tableau (great, but pricey, software, even for students–and Windows only). Note that Mr. Few isn’t a designer, so the Tableau output reminds me of what Google might make rather than Apple, say.

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(Review) Route 411: A new app for Vancity/Edmonton/TO

I just made a quick review on iTunes of Route 411 (@route411 on Twitter), a new iPhone app that supports and uses the open data of Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problems our Toronto data does — it’s outdated. Sadly, the only app on the app store that’s got correct Toronto data is my free TTC Mobile app, which loads the data directly from ttc.ca but has few other features since that’s all ttc.ca can do right now.

Anyway, I bought Route 411 since I already had Red Rocket and thought (what’s one more?), so here’s my review of it on iTunes:

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Vancouver transit (or would you like a list of transit apps?)

I just received an interesting email from someone asking, “How do I get Vancouver”, with a 604 (Vancouver) area code in the signature. While writing a reply (as I often can’t help myself from replying if I have the time), it reminded me that I had a plan, over the holidays, to make a guide to transit services’ mobile offerings, particularly of what’s in the iPhone app store. I even thought about including the developers’ Twitter handles and making a Twitter list of them. Would anyone find this useful, or an interesting read? I thought perhaps about including screenshots, or turning it into an app directory; I bought apps.to thinking I could say provide a search like phrases in Apple ads:

“There are http://apps.to/catch-a-bus and http://apps.to/catch-a-movie …“

Alternatively, apps.to could refer to just Toronto apps

Anyway, here’s what I replied, about transit in Vancouver:

(Edit: There’s also the new Route 411)

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An open letter to Toronto transit/tech thinkers

The following is an email I sent out to a bunch of transit/local people, because I’m looking for feedback and suggestions on what I should do next. I want to help you, my fellow TTC riders, have the best experience possible, but it’s not something I can, or should, do on my own. That’s probably what trapped iTTC and Red Rocket, or even myttc.ca, from having a greater impact on people’s daily lives, year after year.

Please leave comments below, or email me directly — I’m sure people have been thinking about this longer than I have … or may have other perspectives to offer. Together we can build a better app

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TTC Mobile v1.1 Now in App Store!

So I’m happy to say that after the holiday break, Apple quickly approved the v1.1 update that had been submitted mid-December. (Download here in iTunes) You might not notice anything different, though the loading times should be at least twice as fast as before. With iTunes Connect (Apple’s backend) back online after holiday maintenance, I was able to get stats of the past two weeks’ downloads. So I figured now’s as good a time as any to look back on the app’s successes and failures, while talking about future plans.

Of 36 ratings on the app store, 12 are “great,” 3 are “good,” 7 are “ok,” 4 are “don’t like it,” and 10 are “hate it,” – I really wish those who “hated it” would say why, as the feedback I’ve gotten so far is largely positive:

• “Awesome! This app is more reliable than the TTC!” – smushins (4 stars, v1.1)
• “Finally Viva/YRT PLEASE!!” – far_gone (5 stars, v1.0)
• Anonymous email: The scrolling picture that happens when it’s loading only serves to make me feel dizzy looking at it. : (
• striatic in Flickr, on using his photo: “great idea to use it as a loading screen – i wish it was higher quality. … hey it looks cool in the app! though you don’t need to make my attribution nearly that prominent. i’d just remove it”
• “I just downloaded your TTC iPhone app and it’s fantastic! I love how it saves my favourite bus routes and the audio file of the latest 680 News traffic report is genius! Great job!” – Suzie
• “I love it so much even though I live in markham and rarely use ttc. But if you could incorporate viva and yrt UD MAKE MY LIFE SO MUCH EASIER lol — Please change the icon too!” – Farhan

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TTC dataset incorrect– scraping required for offline apps … this won’t be fun.

Can I get contact info for whoever’s making the TTC data available? I’ve a few requests/ideas/fixes to suggest … sigh. If anyone wants to phone me, my number’s (647) 801-LSTA (5782), or just email me directly.

Based on Kieran’s comment on my blog, at http://blog.lsta.me/?p=27#comment-25938534, I decided to compare the given TTC data with that of ttc.ca. (Kieran’s one of the guys behind myttc.ca)

Since the TTC dataset page says “Board periods change around every six weeks.” but the data last changed October 27, it should’ve been updated around December 8th. But it wasn’t, not that I’ve any proof routes have changed since Oct 27. The data might have been just as bad at launch– but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, it took me a bit longer than I thought to get this started, and I’ve only compared the ttc_routedetails txt file with the website, and already I’ve discovered two MAJOR problems with the ttc dataset as given on toronto.ca/open … and I’m thinking of saying, “screw it,” and making my own “official” data set instead — I can see how the myttc.ca guys got the idea

The first? It’s not up-to-date:

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World domination by smartphone ;-)

So I’m trying to figure out what I should focus on as my next app development platform. The obvious choices are Blackberry, since they’re made around the corner in Waterloo; Android, since it’s up-and-coming (and cheap, $25!); then there’s Symbian/Nokia and Java ME-based phones, for which I really like the looks of Ovi (just not the price!). Oh, and of course there’s the Palm stuff, and Windows Mobile, neither of which I can sign up for yet: Palm, because it’s not open yet, Microsoft because they haven’t launched DreamSpark for mobile development — and because just like how Apple requires a Mac, Microsoft requires Windows.

Here’s a visual comparison (all prices USD except Ovi):

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4 days since launch (TTC Mobile worldwide downloads)

So I just sent off TTC Mobile v1.1 to Apple. I’ll write more about it later, basically it’s faster to load because I’m only asking for changed parts of ttc.ca rather than the entire page and its images (using cached images instead), and I’ve fixed a few cosmetic things, plus fixed the 3.1.2 requirement, as the app should run under 3.0 also.

What I really wanted to share was some download stats that surprised me. For just Saturday and Sunday (edit: and Monday/Tuesday), here are the app download numbers by country – 620 downloads total:

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