Transit Quest

(1/27/2013)

One decision I make during my NYC daily commute is whether to walk 5 minutes to take a bus or walk 10 minutes to take the subway.  MTA has recently released real-time data behind major subway lines and bus lines.  Many apps have since been developed to simply report real-time transit data of subway and bus arrival times.  However, none have leveraged the integration of location-aware information with both real-time subway AND bus data to assist a commuting decision made on a daily basis. 

Transit Quest’s central design consists of the following:

General User Experience

1. User provides Location and Time

• User’s current or user-specified

2. User provides Transit Options

• User would provide up to a number of the following options

1. Subway
1. Which line
2. Specific stop
3. Direction
2. Bus
1. Route
2. Specific stop
3. Direction

3. App performs each of the following:

1. Processes time, location and transit options
2. Calculates the distance of the user to each option’s stop
3. Considers the real time until transit (subway/bus) would arrive to each stop
4. Returns its recommendation of an optimal option

Other Features

• Favorites: individual location, subway and bus lines/stops
• Favorites: combinations of the location, subway and bus lines/stops

Project milestones and deliverables

• Interface design
• API integration (MTA subway and bus)
• Mapping and navigation integration
• Database management

Thoughts

I had just started out with planning and designing this project.  Like many in our class, I don’t have much time to work on this.  I welcome any feedback or comments, and hopefully have provided enough detail for you to have an idea what I’m pursuing.