Leveraging new media
for customer informa.on
and community partnerships
Aaron Antrim, Trillium Solutions
California Public & Community Transportation Conference | 6 Nov 2008

New Media
≠
 The concept that new methods of communicating

New Media
is an approach to media & communication
that takes advantage of digital tools
to facilitate more open and adaptable
information sharing.
 The concept that new methods of communicating

The beau)ful new bart.gov is
more than a website.
It’s a data publishing
pla:orm.
Let’s delve in »

BART developer resources:
Helping the agency’s informa)on work harder and do more.

XML: eXtensible markup language
Formats for exchanging data in a way
that soAware can easily understand
(parse) to re‐present data in other
contexts or use it in useful or interes)ng
ways.

BART
REAL‐TIME XML
ESTIMATED
ARRIVAL DATA

iBART: Free applica)on for BART trip planning, arrivals, map, and service advisories
Put image of iBART here.

iBART: Free applica)on for BART trip planning, arrivals, map, and service advisories

BART SCHEDULES IN GTFS
GTFS is the Google Transit Feed SpecificaKon
Now, the most widely used standard format for
transit schedule informa)on.
More info at
code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specifica.on.html
Trillium
More riders, fewer hassles

BART SCHEDULES IN GTFS
“
Why are you publishing schedules this way?
We want to foster innova)ve new
applica)ons, reach a broader audience and
encourage more people to choose BART.
And frankly, we just can't jus)fy spending
)me on some of the things our customers
have asked for (like a QuickPlanner for
Newton). Maybe you can give that a shot.
www.bart.gov
”

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
DEVELOPER.TRIMET.ORG
To quote from TriMet Chief Technology Officer Tim McHugh’s
presenta)on at APTA TransITech (www..nyurl.com/trimet‐cto):
TriMet’s developer resources
How can we put an army of
began with GM request
developers to work for our transit
to promote innova,on and public transit
agency for nearly free?
by providing resources
to an emerging crea,ve class.

developer.trimet.org: Call interface for es)mated
arrivals, schedule informa)on in GTFS

trimet.onmyiphone.net
4994
Free applicaKon for iPhone
shows next arrivals
“At first I was just going to
scrape the TriMet site to get the
informa.on. But then I came to
find out that TriMet actually has
a really nice API to all their
tracking informa.on!
Ma] King, TriMet rider and
soAware developer

For more example uses of
developer.trimet.org
see
www.tinyurl.com/trimet-cto

Route‐specific marke)ng campaign
for Champaign‐Urbana Mass Transit District
www.green15.org

GetSaKsfacKon.com: User‐powered customer service

Deltarides.com: Trillium & Transit Marke)ng developed/
improved trip calendar with mul)ple agencies for Mississippi

For more, see:
www.trilliumtransit.com/blog
Contact:
Aaron Antrim
aaron@trilliumtransit.com
707.633.4464
Trillium
More riders, fewer hassles

Questions?
Trillium
More riders, fewer hassles