Hacking your local bus system for the greater good
summary
Builds an iOS app called Express tracker that pulls an undocumented Express GA GPS API, visualizes real-time vehicle locations and predicts delays better than the official six‑minute‑capped feed. Uses Swift/Xcode, TestFlight for public beta, server-side fallbacks when provider data is missing, and accessibility via voiceover for visually impaired riders. Targets 166 buses on 27 routes serving 1.8M riders with $17M funding, replaces a broken hybrid app and GTFS schedule reliance with GTFS real-time and live GPS — it works well enough to change rider behavior.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction to hacking
- 2:47Collecting data fundamentals
- 8:22Building Express Tracker app
- 17:23Accessibility and voiceover demo
- 23:51Legal and marketing challenges
- 30:53Defining success and open source
- 39:03Taking action for greater good
related talks
05mUnlocking Real-Time Data
16mTidy Transit: Real Life Data Modeling for Public Transportation- 16mTidy Transit: Real Life Data Modeling for Public Transportation
36mNext generation plug & play IT-systems for public transport
06mData-Driven Battery-Lifetime-Aware Scheduling for Electric Bus Fleets
42mBuilding with the Navigation SDK on iOS
15mThe turf wars on data - can be a matter of life and death
27mDataEngBytes 2023 - PER-T1-03 - Lizzie Macneill