Posted at www.techflash.com
How an iPhone app failed bus riders during Seattle snowstorm
John Cook on Monday, November 22, 2010, 11:59pm PST
iPhone | Northwest | Seattle | Wireless
Buses stuck on the 520 Bridge. Photo via Mike Koss.
We’ve been hearing horror stories all night of Seattle area commuters who’ve been stuck in traffic for hours as an unusual November snowstorm hit the Puget Sound area. The icy roads caused plenty of havoc on the roadways, but the storm also rendered one of Seattle’s most popular transportation-related iPhone applications virtually useless.
OneBusAway, which displays real-time information for King County Metro bus routes, was not able to display accurate bus arrival and departure times today after King County shut off the data feed that tracks bus locations.
It may seem counter-intuitive to shut off a feed during a big storm, a time when bus riders rely on accurate transportation information to safely get from point A to point B. But Brian Ferris, creator of the OneBusAway app, says that the tracking technologies don’t work properly when buses are moved onto alternative routes.
“Why would they pull the real-time feed in conditions where you’d probably agree that it would be extra useful?” Ferris writes in a blog post. “They do so because the current tracking system for King County Metro buses doesn’t work well when buses are on adverse weather reroute.”
That’s an unfortunate scenario for bus riders, some of whom were stranded in the cold hoping that buses were on the way.
“OneBusAway claims that everything’s hunky-dory with the 5 and the 358, which sounds implausible. Anyone know for sure?” wrote one Twitter user who was waiting for a bus in Seattle.
In his blog post, Ferris notes that outdated technology on King County buses makes it especially difficult to track bus locations when weather turns nasty.
The position of each bus in Metro KC is not tracked with GPS, but rather with a decidedly lower-tech approach. Each bus is outfitted with a device that can radio the current odometer reading for the bus back to a server. If we know the odometer reading when the bus starts its route, we can periodically monitor the real-time odometer readings to determine how far along the route the bus has traveled. This gives us an estimate of position and from there, an estimate of how early or late a bus is. This is how http://mybus.org works and OneBusAway is just a fancy front-end to MyBus.
The problem comes with buses on adverse weather reroute, or any type of temporary reroute. When a bus goes on reroute, the physical route changes and the odometry calculation based on the original route used above is no longer accurate. In a perfect world, we would know when a bus is on reroute and adjust to its new route. Unfortunately, there is currently no automated way for handling this situation.
Of course, the problem could easily be resolved by tracking buses with GPS systems. But in an email to TechFlash, Ferris said a GPS bus tracking system is probably at least two years away from being implemented.
“Realistically, we’re still years from a solution that can give you an accurate picture of the transit network looks like in conditions like these,” Ferris wrote.
In the meantime, Ferris said he’s working on real-time, machine readable service alerts about cancellations, detours and delay which can be delivered to devices in “smart ways.”
And, in a follow-up blog post titled “The Snow Came Too Soon,” Ferris writes that he’s been working with King County Metro over the past two months to get adverse weather routes placed in the app.
“The good news is that we are making a lot of progress, but the bad and somewhat obvious news is that I didn’t finish in time,” Ferris writes.
[Twitpic photo via Mike Koss]
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obviously, we just need to get all those smart-phone folks on a bus to input their route number into a GPS-enabled app that feeds to a db and out to all the other folks
mckoss and 2 more liked this Like Reply Reply -
This is a great idea. It’s reminiscent of the app featuring crowd-sourced line wait times at Disneyland.Like Reply Reply
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So how again did OneBusAway let anybody down? Sounds to me like KC Metro screwed up, and you’re pointing fingers at the wrong guy. Hell, Ferris sounds like a pretty stand-up dude for taking all this criticism OF HIS FREE AND VOLUNTARY SERVICE and giving calm, careful explanations of the real reasons why things went south.
Please at least reclaim a little of your integrity and change the title of this piece.
2 people liked this. Like Reply Reply -
OneBusAway didn’t work because of the cut of the data feed from King County Metro and antiquated location technology on buses.
I thought that was pretty clear in the story, and the links to Ferris’ blog posts which provided a lot of insight on the issue.
I agree that Ferris was open and informative about what went wrong. The story was not meant as a damnation of his service or him, but as an explanation as to what went wrong and why OneBusAway didn’t work yesterday.
Here’s more from Ferris’ blog post:
“I know of a lot of you are probably frustrated that OneBusAway is pretty much useless (no real-time, no snow reroute info) on a day when you need it most. I’m pretty frustrated too, if only because I have been working with King County Metro and other agencies over the past couple of months to try to get adverse weather reroute information into OneBusAway.”
Thanks for the comment.
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Uh, it failed for android devices as well.. This wasn’t just an iPhone related issue.1 person liked this. Like Reply Reply
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I agree that the story was even handed and presented the facts, but the title of this post is pure link bait IMO. Especially given that OneBusAway is available on both the iPhone and Android platforms.1 person liked this. Like Reply Reply
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It is also available on Windows Phone 7, so I guess the headline could have been:
“How an iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 app failed bus riders during Seattle snowstorm.”
Seems a little clunky to me. Headlines are certainly an art, and it takes real skill to try to nail down effective ones.
I appreciate the feedback.
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How does the app fail when the busses turn the system off? Is it the apps fault? Is it the city’s fault? Why does there need to be blame in this. It isnt a new thing that the Metro turns off the systems during snow routes and holiday routes. The problem isnt with Metro, phones, or apps. It’s with the apathetic Seattlites that want everything without paying for it.Like Reply Reply
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“How a mobile phone app failed bus riders during Seattle snowstorm”, perhaps? Or is that too generic?Like Reply Reply
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Really, the current system failed people? I can’t believe that. People are acting as this is the first time it’s happened. When Metro goes on Snow routes (which I think includes holiday routes) they turn off the service because the system doesnt properly calculate transit times with the 5 bus is on the 37 bus route. The logarithm doesnt know how to compute that. So, yes, GPS will fix this, but Seattle doesnt pass taxes and doesnt want fares to go up, yet wants everything handed to them on a silver platter. Come on guys, those not taking busses sat in the same snarl you did. I think angry people are just trying to blame someone besides themselves. Take ownership and instead of complaining take action in a productive, non-complaining way. Provide solutions not gripes. I’m so tired of the whiney people in this town!!!Like Reply Reply
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The underlying problem here is communication. King County Metro did not provide timely updates through their website, third party application providers or old school services such as a closure hotline or asking another bus driver. Sure there were authoritative tweets about the issue, but not everyone is on Twitter (or has a data plan – yeah even in Seattle).
Regardless of which app you may be using (including Google Map’s public transit routing) none of the apps had accurate information as to what the status of given (snow) routes were. Announcements of route closures (such as no service to Fremont and Wallingford) were not set apart or easily accessed by non-Twitter users.
In fact, the ‘Alerts’ functionality found on the King County Metro site was actually a link to a PDF of the snow routes – and provided no real-time information for travelers. After watching a lot of the back and forth today, it’s clear to me that the crowd-sourcing of information via SMS, Twitter, Facebook and email turned what was a nightmarishly-freezing public transit disaster into a manageable crisis.
Having years of experience in the custom web application industry, I’m interested to know how we could create a crowd-sourced, city-wide emergency broadcast system. Syndicate tweets, facebook posts, emails, sms messages and RSS/XML feeds from websites. Many of my coworkers who left at 5p and made it home in a timely fashion credited following a few folks on Twitter along with having IMs or phone calls with people sitting at computers (who can more readily and decisively search for content at a desktop than someone with a mobile device).
As a result of yesterday and today’s weather, several companies have allowed employees to work from home or have had ‘snow days’ and closed offices. Apart from personal time lost, what has been the projected productivity time lost (cost) due to weather and poor planning/accommodations/communication on the part of King County?
**Full disclosure: I should mention I personally use OneBusAway when travelling from Downtown Seattle to Ballard, it’s quite handy and accurate enough where I have no complaints about the application. And my commute last night (in total) 3 hours waiting for or on bus routes, 2 hours pushing cars and traffic out of major intersections and 1 hour walking from end of bus route home. Lastly, some of my co-workers were stuck on buses to the east side for over 7 hours, some not getting home until 1am or later (not including walk from bus stop to home).
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I like your post. You can get all the smartest people in seattle together to come up with a snow plan, but in a city that doesnt have snow but once every two years, it is hard to distinguish what will work on paper and in practice. So, we don’t get it right the first time. Lets work together to try to get it better for the next time. Instead of fighting eachother.Like Reply Reply
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I don’t know about y’all but me thinks: bad weather + seattle’s capabilities of handling snow = (bleep) it, I’ll stay homeLike Reply Reply
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Hmm, what’s the old adage. When you point a finger at someone, remember that the other four are pointing at yourself.
Our buses have antiquated tracking systems because it’s more “economical.” Shortly after I moved to Washington state, there was a “Public Initiative” that cut auto licensing fee’s. The sponsor, Mr T. Iman, was hailed as a hero for cutting wasteful taxes. Almost immediately public transit had to be cut in every corner of this state. Most people shrugged and said, “I don’t use those services regularly anyway.”
So here we are years later with a minor emergency and people are frustrated because the, “service they don’t use regularly,” does not have modern GPS tracking.
Once again clever programers and leading edge technology are hamstrung by the shortsighted actions of “we the people.” D’ oh!Regarding our “public servant’s” at every level, they can only work with what we provide because they are working for us with what “we” provide. (And that “we” includes our mega-corporations who continue to do everything they can to pay as little tax and demand as much profit as they can.) Even in the face of three decades of failing economic policy new political hucksters get elected on the promise of walk across some body of water and deliver the impossible for no cost. So far the only “walking on water” I’ve seen involved a ferry… or cruise ship.
Maybe what we need is an “app” that informs the ignorant of the ramifications of their actions. I would call it “ActualNews.app” or something like that. B. Franklin would be proud.
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Yes, Mr. Eyman did cut auto licensing fees, but I don’t understand how GPS tracking would have helped yesterday. Would you have felt any better if you had pinpoint precision of buses — with snow chains — slipping helplessly down underpaved streets? Even if Seattle had the money, the idiots who run this town believe that it never snows here. Every year there is a snowstorm and every year the city stops. Even if we had a trillion dollars in public funding we would have to do without buses on days like yesterday and today.
Light rail, on the other hand, works. SoundTransit responded by curtailing its growth.
Real leadership is needed. Real public transit is needed. Unfortunately, we the people will have moved to a more functional city by the time it comes on-line.
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OneBusAway is likely the most widely installed app on Android and iPhone phones in Seattle .
Since KCMetro is so behind the ball, I think OBA should start using the data from their own users to crowd source the GPS data they need. Each time a OBA user boards a bus, it could transmit the accurate time of departure and track the buses location during the entire rider’s trip. There wouldn’t even have to be any more complex UI in the app as you could detect the different speeds of the user as indication that they actually boarded.
I talked to Brian about this last summer at an Android mobile meet up. I wish he had more resources to work toward this.
BTW, I was lucky enough to exit the bus without having to wait for the above pictured jack-knifed bus to clear. My fellow passengers on the #255 probably had to wait many more hours waiting for help to arrive to clear 520.
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Metro screwed up. Our Mayor, who like his predecessor has delusions of competence, told us citizens to park our cars and take mass transit. Then Metro pulled real-time data without any alternative. Most of my fellow men experienced commutes more than 4 times their normal length. Roads were impassible.
Please remember this day when you vote in the next election. Hire a Mayor who understands that roads and transit are actually important.
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Or better yet, couldn’t we just recall this loser? I hear Dino Rossi has a car and needs a job.1 person liked this. Like Reply Reply
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Hmm, what’s the old adage. When you point a finger at someone remember that the other four are pointing at yourself. Our buses have antiqued tracking systems because it’s more “economical.” Shortly after I moved to this area there was a “Public Initiative” that cut auto licensing fee’s. The sponsor, Mr T. Iman was hailed as a hero for cutting wasteful taxes. Almost immediately public transit had to be cut in every corner of this state. So here we are years later and constrained budgets, clever programers and leading edge technology can’t covering every contingency. Thin We did this to ourselves, we are doing this to ourselves.Like Reply Reply
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That didn’t post right. I will try it as a new post then.…
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