The Ice-Cream Shop Solution

The Ice-Cream Shop Solution: "

Or, How a Boston Ice-Cream Shop revealed the future of transit for $300.

In recent years, transit operators in Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, British Columbia, Washington, DC, and elsewhere have equipped rail connections and some bus stops with “countdown clocks” — electronic displays that tell how soon the next train or bus will arrive at a particular location.

… there’s an even better approach: Have the transit agency release a feed of raw data about bus, train, and other services to for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Programmers in those organizations will then figure out how to make the information accessible on the Internet, on smartphones, and on other devices — at little or no cost to transit operators.

Last November the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which serves greater Boston, released “a real-time location and prediction feed for five of the busiest bus lines in the system”…

Here’s how the programmers responded:

• Within an hour, an application (“app”) using the information was placed on Google Earth, giving real-time location of buses on those lines.

• In two days, a programmer created a web page that tracks the buses’ movements.

• In five weeks, the data was on apps for iPhones and Android phones.

• In seven weeks, the data was available for delivery to any phone.

• In March, a shop in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, installed an LED sign counting down to the arrival of the next bus. The sign cost the shop — JP Licks, a café and ice cream store — $300. It reportedly has brought in additional business from individuals who now know how much time they have for a coffee or a snack before the bus arrives.

More here.

Thanks to Philip Langdon in New Urban News.

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