Comments on: WaitLess bus tracking system

By: shuttle128

shuttle128 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:32:05 +0000

W00t Georgia Tech. When the hell are we gonna get these at the stops? I’m tired of waiting 20 minutes for the Red route bus at the Guggenheim building when I could be home already.

By: rahul

rahul — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:25:10 +0000

sir……..

the concept is really awesome..

pls do guide me through. if u can.

really very intrested in this concept…neeed ur help.. wting of ur reply…

me doing mine graduation in computers….

By: matt

matt — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:06:08 +0000

from matt again. Well, it turns out, Ga Tech has their own GPS tracking equipment on the bus and provides NextBus with the GPS locations. NextBus then displays it on their website, which you can see via webpage or cell phone as you may know.

For this project we had permission to use an xml feed NextBus provided us. Now that we know the data originates from Ga Tech we hope to be able to cut NextBus out of the picture.

By: Wwhat

Wwhat — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:11:14 +0000

‘a LED’ not ‘an LED’

By: Harrison

Harrison — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:25:09 +0000

Danny beat me to it. I’m also a first year tech student and as soon as I saw the video I was saying “No way! When the hell did that get put up”? I use that stop all the time and I’ve never seen it. How do you guys access the GPS data. I’ve wondered for sometime how nextbus does it. Is the feed public/available? I’d love to be able to view it.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:09:09 +0000

This is Daniel, another one of the designers. Just thought I’d say thanks to everyone for the comments and to danny, Welcome to Tech and if both of us are lucky you’ll see these all over campus by the time you graduate.

By: jongscx

jongscx — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:45:36 +0000

Being a tech fail-out, I’m glad they finally got this system up and running. I actually came up with an eerily similar idea, almost exactly, using solar panels, wifi, and LEDs on a paper map to save power… but alas, “never got around to it”. Guess that’s what separates us, huh.

Go Jackets!!!

By: jewjacket

jewjacket — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:45:20 +0000

GO JACKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: matt

matt — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:23:52 +0000

this is matt again who is one of the designers.

We worked on this all semester as our Senior Design Project in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. We are using GPS data that was made available for us to use since the information is already being provided by GPS transponders on the buses. GT Transportation provides the data to NextBus for the website tracking, and we just used that same feed for attaining our GPS locations.

We have tested it at bus stops for demonstrations within the last couple weeks, that’s why you haven’t seen it. Trials will possibly begin this summer at 1 or 2 bus stops probably, GT Transportation is working closely with us on that.

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:16:30 +0000

Wait, how long has this been operational? I just got back home from my first year at Tech 3 days ago, and I don’t remember seeing this. Then again, I never use that particular bus stop anyway, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed it for a while.

I agree, NextBus is NextToUseless (lol c wat i did thar), so I could definitely see the use of this system. Did you have to work with the Tech administration to get these approved and placed in the Tech Trolleys? Or did you just have a friend with the GPS transmitter sitting on the Trolley for the purpose of this video?

By: Seth R

Seth R — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:59:56 +0000

I’ve wanted to set up something similar for DC Metro Busses for a while. I’d be cool to have an app for gps enabled phones where people could hit a button that says I’m on such and such a bus then everyone else could see where the bus is. It’d obviously be a bit more complex, needing to only listen to info from a valid bus route location and have a voting system, etc.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:47:26 +0000

This is Matt again who is one of the designers.

Actually, we have LEDs inbetween each stop. Sometimes more than one. There are 42 LEDs, and only about 15-20 of them are actual bus stops.

Also, like Auburn, at Ga Tech they do have large LCD screens inside buildings/student center, that show the next bus website of all the bus locations. However, if you are at the stop that is of little help. You have to get out your cell phone login to tech wireless, go the the NextBus website, select a stop, and then view a useless/incorrect prediction of minutes till the next arrival. That’s alot of steps and requires internet access and time.

By: cerberus

cerberus — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:59:32 +0000

I think this is great. However I believe it to be fundamentally flawed.

The status light shows the bus status as ‘at the stop’ when it can be, in fact, in transit to the next stop.

It needs an additional light positioned between each ‘stop’ to show that the bus is ‘in transit’ between stops.

Showing the status as ‘at bus stop x’ is blatantly false information if the bus is in transit between stops!

By: Red

Red — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:17:06 +0000

I’m at auburn as well.

Our transit locator is actually very nice. They have started installing large 50″ screen in some of the major building for the express purpose of displaying bus locations. On top of that, the web client and the mobile client both work very well and there is almost zero lag between them and actual bus positions.

Hmm.. it is tempting to try and build one, maybe install it outside at the transit stop in my apt complex.

By: matt

matt — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:06:56 +0000

Also, the power switch is just for us to use. A real version, would have that on the inside of the box.

Thanks for the comments!