New media approaches to communication take advantage of digital tools to facilitate more open information sharing. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency publishes transportation schedules and real-time arrival data in formats like XML and GTFS to encourage innovative applications from developers. By making data publicly available, agencies hope to increase ridership through new tools and reach broader audiences without spending resources on internal application development.

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

2. New Media
≠
 The concept that new methods of communicating

3. 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

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

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

7. 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.

8. BART
REAL‐TIME XML
ESTIMATED
ARRIVAL DATA

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

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

11. 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

12. 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
”

13. 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.

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

17. 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

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

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

23. GetSaKsfacKon.com: User‐powered customer service

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

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

26. Questions?
Trillium
More riders, fewer hassles