Android App to track the T

[awscherb]

Hello all,

I've been lurking on the site for about a year now, I've recently made an account and decided to post for the first time!

I'm not really sure where I should share this, but I made an Android application to track the T, and figured I would share it with you all. MBTA GPS allow you to see where bus and subway vehicles are in realtime. You can also receive arrival predictions for all subway and bus lines (minus the Green line of course). The link to it is below:

MBTA GPS on the Google Play Store

 

[Arlington]

Hello all,

I've been lurking on the site for about a year now, I've recently made an account and decided to post for the first time!

I'm not really sure where I should share this, but I made an Android application to track the T, and figured I would share it with you all. MBTA GPS allow you to see where bus and subway vehicles are in realtime. You can also receive arrival predictions for all subway and bus lines (minus the Green line of course). The link to it is below:

MBTA GPS on the Google Play Store

Congrats on the achievement (I'm a fan of the Transit app and an iPhone guy myself)

How come nobody has the courage to estimate the Green Line? such as:

Estimating the position of cars based on when they entered their portal? Sure it won't be perfect, but neither are the phantom buses that we see in all the bus apps. And all you'd need is a 25-minute "buffer" somewhere to hold the estimates.

Every time your buffer "saw" a B, C, D, or E enter its southern portal, it would start an estimator that'd expire after 17 minutes, and just estimate its journey northward for at least 'til the timetable would estimate that it is at Park Street? Like this hypothetical B C or D trip?

Portal + .5 min = Kenmore
Portal + 3 min = Hynes
Portal + 6 min = Copley
Portal + 9 min = Arlington
Portal + 12 min = Boylston
Portal + 15 min = Park Street.
Portal + 17 train disappears (since figuring turnbacks is too hard)

Sure, after that it probably gets too crazy. But even such an estimate would be way more useful than nothing.

Similarly, if you see Ds and Es leaving Science Park Inbound, why not estimate where they are the whole way to their exiting their portal?

Portal + 1 min = NS
Portal + 4 min = Haymarket
Portal + 9 min = Park
Portal + 12 min = Arlington
Portal + 15 min = Copley
Portal + 18 min = Hynes
Portal + 21 min = Kenmore
Portal + 24 min = Blandford/StMary/Fenway

Portal + 26 min, the buffer-estimator would expire (and hope to see the live pings resume at portal's exit)

The point is that your computer has more foresight and lookback than most riders.

 

[The EGE]

Inbound that'd be a great idea. Lechmere-NS data is not currently available, so you wouldn't have any ability to predict based off that.

 

[ErnieAdams]

Arlington, to your point, might as well just wait for the T to finish its tracking equipment install. Now that they've had four years to think about it, they do seem to be moving forward at a decent pace at last. I always wondered why they didn't just have the inspectors at Kenmore, Boylston, etc. type in a single letter for the next train, that could then be sent to those LED screens at the stations up ahead. In the Central Subway with such frequent service, we probably would have been thrilled just to know what was coming next even if we didn't know when.

awscherb, welcome and thanks for sharing! I'll be giving your app a try over my next few commutes. My first impressions are very positive. It has a great feel to it and the data displays as fast as I've ever seen. That matters when you're pulling your hand out from your mitten on a cold platform. One suggestion would be the ability to see all Green lines or both Red branches on a single view. It's useful to see all branches at once, especially in those places along the routes where a rider has multiple options. Overall, though, I like it a lot!

 

[Arlington]

Arlington, to your point, might as well just wait for the T to finish its tracking equipment install. Now that they've had four years to think about it, they do seem to be moving forward at a decent pace at last.

As of March 3rd, The MBTA says "some" information will be available within weeks, but that full implementation is "in the next four months"

So in a world where all apps work off the same open data feed, whichever app makes the most of partial data--particularly to give a sense of what's going on in the subway--is going to be the one that Green Line riders adopt and then have no reason to switch from.

They say that Park St, Boylston, and Symphony will get wired last. So if the feed gets turned on before then, complete coverage is going to take a little bit of forecasting even then.

 

[ErnieAdams]

Well, I'll see your inertia and raise you more inertia. Green Line riders who start or end their journeys on the branches have already chosen their preferred apps, and a rough underground predictive system that's going to be obsolete by summer probably wouldn't be a game changer. Plus, as EGE mentioned, you could only do it eastbound since the trains aren't broadcasting their locations out past North Station. I do agree that it would be interesting to see someone take on the challenge, though. The way the Green Line is dispatched feels so ad hoc at times, it seems like it would be very hard to get right, and a fun experiment for the programatically inclined among us. (Do it, awscherb!!)

 

[Arlington]

Well, I'll see your inertia and raise you more inertia. Green Line riders who start or end their journeys on the branches have already chosen their preferred apps, and a rough underground predictive system that's going to be obsolete by summer probably wouldn't be a game changer. Plus, as EGE mentioned, you could only do it eastbound since the trains aren't broadcasting their locations out past North Station. I do agree that it would be interesting to see someone take on the challenge, though. The way the Green Line is dispatched feels so ad hoc at times, it seems like it would be very hard to get right, and a fun experiment for the programatically inclined among us. (Do it, awscherb!!)

It is a mystery to me that they don't publish positions between Lechmere & Science Park (what, is the Viaduct an alien spaceship?) but since North Station and Haymarket will be among the first AVI stations to come online, they'd be points from which you should be able to forecast the Lech/North-originating trains as they go to/through Park-Boylston (and then ping again from the AVI at Arlington)

Same in the other way. Even if Symphony gets wired last, you should be able to project it based on Prudential and MFA.

Basically, all of these are "last station + 3mins" as the forecast for the next stop (and +3 mins for each stop thereafter until you get a signal again)