There was a terrific article in The Atlantic Cities by Emily Badger that described the phenomenon of how technology changes our perception of waiting for the bus. Emily outlines the evidence that not only does the psychology of waiting change for riders, but simply having the real-time data for arrivals is more important than the frequency of the bus. Simply knowing when to get to the stop to minimize your wait time and having the confidence you haven’t missed your bus has a dramatic impact on ridership and rider satisfaction.I’m thrilled to have played a big part in bringing this to Madison with the Madison transit API. What started out as a weekend hack three years ago has become a core Madison service.
Hitting the two million mark
2013 was the year the API entrenched itself as a pillar in the Madison transit system and I’m blown away by it. With very little overhead or attention from me, here’s what happened in the last twelve months.- 11 new developers for a total of 48
- API traffic went from 100,000 requests/week to 2,000,000 requests/week
Apps released by developers this year
- UW began installing bus kiosks throughout campus
- UW integrated the API into their campus map
- Madison Library added a web widget to their web page
- Preston Austin and Steve Faulkner integrated the API into a turn-key Raspberry Pi kiosk project
- Foursquare integration
- A first-class web interface for the Metro - http://madb.us
- A minimalist web interface - http://busmsn.com
- iPhone/Android app - The Transit App
- iPhone app - Mad Next Bus
Watch the Transit API visualized in real time.
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