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WelliBUS users have been asking me for real time bus info ever since WelliBUS was first released a long time ago.

I have been in touch with the Metlink people (who are just awesome) but sadly the information will not be available any time soon, and even when it will become available 3rd parties will probably have to wait even longer (unless they decide to start scraping HTML).

So after doing some thinking I have decided to try and implement it myself. Yup, I am indeed crazy. The craziest part is that I believe that this could work, especially if you get involved. At the moment 4000 of you are using WelliBUS and I would like to thank each and every one of you. Most of you are using iPhones, the rest are on iPod touches and Android devices. Although this is intended mostly for iPhone users there are scenarios when even an iPod touch can be used (WiFi on the bus, Free Wifi Hotspots, etc).

If out of 4000 people just 2000 decide to use this system I am sure we will get pretty good coverage, especially at peak times when we need it the most.

I have already starting implementing this which is why I am asking for everyone’s help. Please post comments below to tell me what you think, what I should and should not do, what you think is most important in the first release, what I missed out on, whatever you think might be useful. Once you’ve done this please spread the word. Don’t forget to download WelliBUS if you have an iPhone, iPod touch or Android device.

Here’s how I was thinking that it would work.

User waiting for the bus:

• Starts the app and selects the bus stop number they are at and also the service numbers that they want a notification for.  (e.g. Stop 5002 – St James Theatre, Services 1 – Island Bay, 46 – Broadmeadows, 54 – Churton Park)
• Either leaves the application running (at least in the 1st release) or closes the application and waits for a push notification (future release)

User traveling on the bus:

• After getting on the bus the user selects the service that they are on and taps “I’m on the Bus“. (e.g. select stop 5000 – Courtenay Place, Service 54 – Churton Park)
• User leaves the application running and can alternatively see on a Google Map view as the bus travels towards its destination
• User sees a Good Citizen points indicator. See how the points work below.

WelliBUS will:

• Notify the user in stop 5002 that a service 54 – Churton Park is on its way and reports the approximate distance between the stops
• Reward the user on the bus 1 Good Citizen point for having helped another traveller find out when the bus was coming. The more people use the information broadcast by the user on the bus the more Good Citizen points the users get. All users that broadcast their location on the bus will get “rewarded”
• Provide a Good Citizen ranking system (users can register and submit their points to our server)

Good Citizen points:

• A user that leaves the application running while on the bus (between start and stop) will accrue 0.5 points for each stop they pass by
• If at least another user is on the same bus and broadcasts the information then all users receive another 0,5 points
• For each user that is notified about the bus that the Good Citizen is on then another point is awarded.
• Sponsors can reward Good Citizens: e.g. maybe Snapper can give them extra credit, maybe Metlink could discount a monthly pass as long as a minimum number of points is accrued the previous month. Other sponsors can be as creative as they want. The rewards should be provided in exchange for Citizen Points. The claimed points will go towards a Sponsors Ranking. (e.g. If my favourite coffee shop in Wellington, Mojo Old Bank give a free coffee for every 200 Citizen Points then their points value will go up by 200 every time they offer a reward. This is a rough guide at the moment)

Cheating:

• If a person is in a car rather than on a bus then the application will detect the car speed, missing the stops, and other similar checks
• If somebody does manage to fool the “system” the other people will be able to veto them. e.g. if user A reports being on a bus that never reaches user B although it should then user B will be able to give thumbs down to user A. The more thumbs down the slower the user accrues Citizen points. Eventually a lying user can be removed from the system.
• Other “punishments” could be applied. Be creative!

You can:

• Donate. You can help the development of this feature by contributing with funds.
  
  
• Spread the word! Nothing is more helpful.
• Twit about this. Here’s an example Help Wellington get Real Time Public Transport information. http://bit.ly/9pq2v3 Please RT
• Post a link to this post on your Facebook wall. For example you could post Make Wellington the first city in the world with real time traffic info driven by us. Details here http://bit.ly/9pq2v3
• You could sponsor this project. There are many ways in which you can help. First email office [at] tmro [dot] net and we will take it from there.
• You could buy ads in WelliBUS. Your business logo and a 1 sentence message could be displayed on the Map View close to a relevant stop.
• You could help in ways I haven’t even thought about.

Cheers…

This past week has been a very active week in terms of deployments.

iPhone WelliBUS reached version 2.5.1. The latest update adds a new feature that allows users to save favourite services not just stops, improves the load times significantly, brings tooltips to a few screens and addresses a couple of small issues.

But the real reason for this post is that this week we launched two Android applications.

Firstly WelliBUS for Android was launched! This first release of the application is very feature rich thanks to the work of @cur3n4 Users can search by stop numbers, station names, street names and even wharfs. There is even a Map view that allows users to find nearby stops. Once the departure stop has been identified the application allows filtering by service number or date/time and goes on to display the departure times and itinerary for the selected routes. Download this free application from the Android Market today.

The other application is the Android version Twister Referee. This is a port of the iPhone application with the same name. Its purpose is simple: enable referee-free Twister play. Rather than having one player operate the spinner the application will do it automatically, over and over again.

Cheers…

After Mauricio (the Geekzone BDFL) asked me to review the JCMatthew DVR-320T I wasn’t sure what to expect. Now I can honestly say that I am happy to do this. I will try to be as impartial as possible and provide the readers with a no-nonsense review. My tone will be as non-technical as possible and I will strive to explain the slang as clearly as I can.

So I’ve started this reviewing journey that you can follow here. I will not be cc-ing my review to this blog but I will be taking questions via this post if there are any.

So feel free to drop me a line if you feel like it.

Cheers…

Overview
On Thursday 17th of September Apple approved WelliBUS. Now the people in Wellington, NZ have a new option when it comes to finding out when their bus comes:
- use www.metlink.org.nz
- txtBUS 287 (20c / msg)
- 0800 801 700 (free)
- WelliBUS (free, needs an active internet connection)

A quick look at txtBUS will show you what a neat service it is. Type the stop number (optionally the service number and time), send yr msg to BUS (287) and there you go. But what happens when you don’t know that stop number? Or what if you forget the txt syntax? You can browse the metlink website or you can call their 0800 number. Alas neither option is convenient. This is where WelliBUS excels!

With WelliBUS you can do everything that you can do with txtBUS but you can also find out the bus stop number by searching by a street name or by simply tapping a GPS button that will do the hard work for you. Then you’ll be returned a list of nearby stops. Just tap one and you’re done! WelliBUS let’s you filter by date or service number just as you’d expect it to.

Launch
WelliBUS has been out there for only a few days now and I have to say I am impressed by the feedback I’ve received. Thank you everyone.
I don’t know if it is because it’s free or because Wellingtonians love their iPhones or because they use public transportation a lot.

I know many of you are asking about real time bus information, it’s coming but you have to be patient, from what I’ve heard you won’t have to wait much longer… At this point treat this as a rumor.

I hear a few of you have found some issues, please post them here as comments and I will prioritize them and tackle them as soon as I can. I know there is a typo and I know that if you filter by buses using 00 prefixes the app fails to filter. So if you search for service 008 please use just 8 instead.

If you want a copy, the app is here WelliBUS

Rest assured the app will stay free, ad-free, bloatware free. But if you like it I encourage you to download one of my paid apps from here: tmro apps.

Cheers…

p.s. My close friends know the funny story of how this application was conceived, but this is neither the place nor the time to share that story…

p.p.s. please leave your comments and feature requests as comments below.