It actually happened - LA (Metro) is now on Google Transit!

Earlier this month, Metro officially went live on Google Transit. Users can now get driving, walking, and transit directions for trips in the LA area via Google Transit, which is accessible through the Get Directions feature of Google Maps.

Maya Emsden, Metro's Deputy Executive Officer of Creative Services, said that Metro's launch on Google Transit means that users can now access a versatile, multilingual trip planner that integrates the features of Google Maps at a web-based media briefing held yesterday morning

Some of those features include the ability to do searches by business names, to provide street views of bus stops and train stations, and to generate itineraries that are accessible to the visually impaired. (Yes, these are things that the Metro trip planner cannot currently do.)

Ms. Emsden also spoke of how Metro saw its launch on Google Transit as a means to

   1. increase transit awareness
   2. convert potential riders into active riders and
   3. increase off-peak ridership.

Metro, like everyone else it seems, is under pressure to increase its operating revenues. Getting people to ride transit during off-peak hours seems like a no-brainer.

There are still barriers to overcome in increasing ridership, particularly during off-peak hours. With some exceptions (i.e. Wilshire), off-peak buses don’t run very often. I'd be hard-pressed to decide what is worse: getting to the bus stop just to see the bus you needed has pulled away, or not knowing when the next bus is coming.

But what if you could see where the next bus is on a Google Map? Might that change your feelings a tad about riding a bus?

UCSD and the University of Michigan draw on Global Positioning System (GPS) data from their shuttle buses to create what are called mash-ups on a Google Map. For fun, I click on these mash-ups and watch these bus icons move along a Google Map every couple of seconds. Via computer or smart phone, people can find out what time the next bus is coming … or pull up this map, which shows them where the next bus is. And when it’s late at night, you can look at the site to see where the next bus is, and figure out whether you should wait inside a little longer before heading outside to the bus stop.

University of Michigan Mash Up

UCSD mash-up

By providing this information, transit systems can make it feasible for more people to ride, particularly when buses run infrequently.

How far off are we from having these kinds of mash-ups available for Metro buses? And for buses operated by traditional municipal operators? Will there be a time when these agencies will open up NextBus/GPS data in a way that the public can also see the whereabouts of a bus from a computer or a smartphone?

I do think that Metro’s collaboration with Google Maps marks the beginning of something incredibly promising. The discussions with Google led Metro to open its timetable data to everyone at www.developer.metro.net. Perhaps this will lead to innovations such as the iBart application for iPhones.

Furthermore, Metro’s launch on Google Transit also expands the versatility of using Google Transit to plan itineraries that span across agencies and county lines. Locally, these agencies are on Google Transit: Burbank, Irvine, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino County, Foothill Transit, Metrolink and Thousand Oaks.

And finally…

Juan and I would like to thank all of the people who took the time to join the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit Facebook group. They include our friends, our mothers, our colleagues in the transportation field here in LA, and people we don't even know who found the group through Stalker Feed. We hope we didn't pester you too much. But because you joined the group on Facebook, key supporters of Google Transit, such as City Council President Eric Garcetti and Metro board member Richard Katz, were able to demonstrate that there was public support for this kind of public/private collaboration.

Metro is now on Google Transit

Metro Releases Schedule Data in Google Format - Google Transit to Follow!

Last week, Metro quietly published a developer site to publicly release GTFS data (the backbone of Google Transit) at http://developer.metro.net.

Today, they announced it in a press release: L.A. Metro Releases Transit Data to Spur Applications Development and Grow Ridership. In the release, they say the Developer Site "is one of a number of exciting interactive developments that will be announced in the coming weeks."

This can only mean one thing, that Metro will soon be on Google Transit. I know that there are some upcoming schedule changes because of the new Gold Line Extension, so that may complicate the release of schedule data, but I would expect Los Angeles to be able to use Google Transit in the next month or so. Of course, if this doesn't happen we'll tell you what you can do to apply pressure.

Join the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit Facebook Group to keep updated on the push for Google Transit.

Using Metro on the Smartphone

For the past few weeks I've been playing around with Rapid on the Cell and the cell phone version of Metro's Trip Planner as part of my ongoing look at how new mobile technologies can help people better interact with public transit. A lack of information is a big barrier to transit use for choice riders. The internet has revolutionized the availability of transit information - no longer do people have to have paper copies of time tables and route maps to figure out how to get around.

However, as the internet becomes more mobile with laptops, cells, and smart phones, it seems Metro has not kept up. Metro currently has two mobile offerings, TripPlanner and RapidBus.net.

A screenshot taken by Sirinya of the Rapid on the Cell site while she was tracking the whereabouts of the next 720 from her home computer for Juan

Rapidbus.net allows visitors to read the same next bus displays at Metro Rapid (7-series) stops, but from their web-enabled cell or computer. As frequent transit users know, the information provided by these screens is not the most accurate.

One downfall of the line I frequently use, the 720, is that there is no option to see when the next bus is arriving at stops in Santa Monica. I assume this is because there are no inductive loops for signal priority in Santa Monica, which I believe drives the Next Bus times. One additional downside of using the inductive loops in the asphalt rather than GPS positioning is that the first stop for which next bus information is available often reads "Unavailable" until a bus is only a few minutes away.

All in all, Rapidbus.net is a useful tool that can help users minimize wait time at bus stops. I used it to get home from downtown late Saturday night, and was able to arrive at my stop only 3 minutes before the bus arrived. At the time, the 720 was operating with 15 minute headways. One downside of Rapidbus.net is that, at least on my cellphone (a Blackberry 8820), it does not enable deep linking. Deep linking would be useful if a user wanted to save a bookmark of nextbus information for a stop they frequented (work or home) and didn't want to spend the minute or so it takes to navigate the Rapidbus site to find the next bus information.

On the cell, a user must click links for "MTA" (the first one, not the 2nd of the two MTA's available), then the line they wish to travel on, the direction they wish to travel, then the stop they wish to view information for. The computer version is more user friendly.

One additional errata is the presence of a Sepulveda stop on the 720. The stop is actually at Bonsall, 400 yards away.

Using Trip Planner on the cell is a bit more difficult. Trip Planner online is notorious for errors. Luckily, TripPlanner on the cell can provide useful information for users who have figured out how to use the site. The trick is knowing Metro's convention for cross streets, which is a "/" rather than a "&". If you use a & which is the convention on Google Maps, you'll never find what you're looking for.

Once you get past that part, you have to verify that TripPlanner understood your intersections correctly. Then it gives you some options of what bus to take. If you're not familiar with different routes, this can be difficult, especially if you're not familiar with the difference between two or more bus numbers which use the same route (920/720/20). Eventually, it's possible to figure out what time the next bus is scheduled to arrive. This is useful information.

One huge drawback to TripPlanner on the computer by phone is that it doesn't include owl service. I found this out when using TripPlanner on my cell to come back home from a night out at Karaoke in Korea Town. It was around 1 in the morning, but TripPlanner showed the next trip at 4:38 in the morning. Because PDFs don't load well on my cell, I couldn't access the time tables. I had to call a friend to find out when the next 20 bus might be coming.

At the time, I wasn't aware of NextTrip, which is accessible by clicking "Riding Metro" and then "Metro Bus" on the mobile site. This would only have been a viable option since I knew which line I wanted to take and which stops I wanted to use.

Both of Rapidbus and TripPlanner on the cell have shortcomings, but are useful to a patient user who has some degree of bus riding experience. I'm looking forward to the one day, very soon, when Google Transit rolls out in the Los Angeles area. After that, many other good things will happen.

Using Google Transit on Google Maps for Mobile

Lack of information is a barrier to using transit. To go somewhere, you have to know how to get there. In a car, you have maps and potentially a GPS device. For transit in LA, you have Trip Planner, time tables, and a stylish, but not geographically representative, map of routes and lines. These resources are hard for a visitor or first time transit rider to find, nonetheless figure out in a little over an hour.

Luckily, in San Francisco , BART and Muni are on Google Transit. While I was up there last weekend, I documented an hour of using my Blackberry 8820 with GPS, and Google Transit on Google Maps for Mobile to navigate the city.

I had some time to kill, so I decided to get some Dim Sum in Chinatown. I'm unfamiliar with San Francisco, so I used Yelp, an online review site, to find a good place to go. I went to their mobile site and searched for "dim sum" in Chinatown, San Francisco, CA. In the first page of results, I found a place with 4 stars called Delicious Dim Sum, which was what I was looking for.

I then searched for "Delicious Dim Sum" on Google Maps for Mobile and found out how to get there using transit. There was a bus departing from two blocks away in just a few minutes.

Google Transit showed me how to walk there:

What the bus stop looked like:

And what time the bus was leaving:

I hopped on the 9X to go to Chinatown.

While I was in transit, my Cousin sent me a text telling me that he and his brother would be grabbing beers before the Giants game near AT&T Park. I told them I'd be there around 6.

I hopped off the bus in Chinatown and walked about a block to Delicious Dim Sum.

And it was delicious:

While eating the pork bun, I searched for the 21st Amendment Brewery on Google Maps for Mobile and found transit directions to get there. I had to walk a few blocks down Jackson Street to get to the stop.

When I got to the stop, Muni's next bus sign not only let me know how long I would be waiting

but also that Muni was subject to state cuts to transit operating funds and what I could do to learn more.

I got on the bus, and had about 20 minutes in transit, so I used my blackbery to update my facebook status

and check the news back home.

I was also able to follow my progress along the route:

(I'm at the blue dot, the route is the blue line, green diamond is beginning, red diamond is destination, orange diamonds are embarkation and disembarkation)

When I got off the bus I had a short walk:

and then I grabbed a beer with my cousins:

.

I did all of this in about an hour and 15 minutes. I was unfamiliar with the system (I event tried to use my declining balance BART ticket on Muni), but Google Transit made it easy to figure out.

Want experiences like this in LA? Join the effort to get Metro and the munis on Google Transit by joinining the Los Angeles Wants Google Transit Facebook group.