Slide deck for presentation delivered at the World Intelligent Transportation Systems Congress, 22 September 2009, in Stockholm, Sweden.

1. Aaron Antrim,
Trillium Solutions
Transit 2.0
How online partnerships and open data
are spurring public transit innovation
& improving public awareness of travel options

2. Spending on auto
adver/sing in the
U.S. peaked in 2004
at $24 billion
Source: Wall Street Journal
$44 billion was spent
on transit in the
United States that
year
Source: Na0onal Transit
Database

3. How can transit
compete and thrive?

4. Planners
advocate
integrating
transit into
the
streetscape.

5. When does my
train arrive? What time does the
(trimet.org & 5 iPhone Where’s a good library close?
(Google)
apps) restaurant?
(yelp.com & iPhone app)

6. How we
integrate transit
into the
landscape of
online
information?

7. How can transit compete and thrive?
How do we integrate transit into the
landscape of online information?
Open data makes transit
information more ubiquitous.

8. Open data for transit information ubiquity
• Examples:
• Google Transit
• Agency developer sites
• iPhone applications
• Estately
• Walkscore.com
• BrailleNote
• Multi-modal planning
• TransitAndTrails.org
• GTFS for rural providers

9. Everywhere there is travel informa/on,
transit should be an op/on

10. Everywhere there is travel informa/on,
transit is an op/on
Google Transit

11. The Google Transit Feed
Specification, as a lightweight
data standard for transit
geographic and schedule data, has
quickly become an increasingly
ubiquitous format.
And you don’t have to be
Google to use it.

12. We’re small and we can’t provide
every customized solution people ask
for…. making the data available is
something that we’re very familiar
with so that developers can develop
the tools themselves. It’s like having
an army of developers available to us.
— Tim McHugh, CTO, Trimet
[full interview at tinyurl.com/trimet-cto]

13. “The old limits of what unmanaged
and unpaid groups can do are no
longer in operation; the difficulties
that kept self-assembled groups from
working together are shrinking,
meaning that the number and kinds
of things groups can get done
without financial motivation or
managerial oversight are growing.”
— Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

14. developer.trimet.org
for Portland, Oregon
• Real time arrivals
• GTFS schedules
• Developer license
• Open source
software
• Transit terminology
Open data for transit information ubiquity

15. SF BART developer site,
SF Bay Area, California
• Real time arrivals
• GTFS schedules
• Developer license
• RSS service advisories
Open data for transit information ubiquity

16. developer.metro.net
for Southern California
• Schedule API
• GTFS schedules
• Developer license
• GIS data
• Terminology and
data guide
Open data for transit information ubiquity

17. iTunes Application store: Applications for trip
planning, maps, arrival estimates and updates.
Open data for transit information ubiquity

18. iBART: A free
application
for arrivals
and trip
planning.
(pandav.us)

19. estately.com
Real estate
search site lets
users search by
proximity to
transit. Estately
obtains transit
info from public
Google Transit
Feed Spec data.
Open data for transit information ubiquity

20. walkscore.com: How far will public transit take
you in 15, 30, or 45 minutes? Uses public GTFS.
Open data for transit information ubiquity

21. Sendero Group
(www.senderogroup.com)
Talking GPS
with refreshable
braille display
loads transit
locations from
GTFS.
Open data for transit information ubiquity

22. Travel Assistant Device: University of South
Florida pilot project utilizes GTFS and mobile
phones to tell riders with special needs when to
alight from the vehicle. More at www.nctr.usf.edu/abstracts/abs77711.htm

23. Goose Networks: Multi-Modal Planning
Goose Networks software uses GTFS to incorporate
fixed-route transit into multi-modal trip planner
Show all relevant options; 7 carpool, 3
transit
goosenetworks.com
Open data for transit information ubiquity

24. Goose Networks: Interagency transfers
Genentech – South San Francisco
Transfer from BART to private employer
shuttle
goosenetworks.com
Open data for transit information ubiquity

25. transitandtrails.org
Mashes up
hiking trail and
campground
data with
transit (by
linking to
Google Transit).

26. northcoastjournal.com
Online event
calendar has
two clicks to
transit
directions for all
events, using
Google Transit.

27. northcoastjournal.com
Online event
calendar has
two clicks to
transit
directions for all
events, using
Google Transit.

28. By putting this data in a common format, it
can really smooth the information sharing
between agencies. …We need to make
connections with them [other agencies], and
a lot of that now is verbal or through printed
material, and there is a great opportunity to
actually shuttle the information back and
forth to make it much more accessible when
you’re planning service.
— Tim McHugh, CTO, Trimet
[full interview at tinyurl.com/trimet-cto]

29. Widespread GTFS adoption helps spur
successful open source innovation
Example: TimeTable Publisher
timetablepublisher.org

30. Small
agencies
can benefit
from GTFS,
too.
Trillium
WebSchedule
Easy-to-use,
inexpensive web-
based app for
maintaining and
publishing GTFS.
more at
trilliumtransit.com

31. Next-generation web-based
open source GTFS publishing app
beginning development.
Stay in touch at www.trilliumtransit.com/blog

32. Conclusion
If agencies provide standardized
data, worldwide software
development communities can
help public transportation
agencies to provide information to
their customers in more useful
ways and places.

33. Questions?
Aaron Antrim, Trillium Solutions
aaron@trilliumtransit.com / +1 707.633.4474 / Twitter @aaronantrim
Keep up-to-date on open data and GTFS applications at
www.trilliumtransit.com/blog