Wed 13 Jun 2007
The Need for Small Agency Transit Software
Posted by Joe Hughes under Google Transit Feed Spec, Small Agencies
Nicole Tedesco from TCAT, a transit agency in the Ithaca, NY area, posted this informative discussion of the challenges that some agencies face in making their schedule data available to the public. She ends with this request for better tools for small agencies:
So, this is my challenge to Google and to all of you transit buffs out
there: build us a very cheap or free database or other software that
will maintain schedule data and export to GTFS. There are products
out there on the market, but they cost an arm, a leg, and your
firstborn. There is huge market potential for someone to build an
excellent product, sneak into the market, and grab up all of the
smaller customers that wouldn’t touch one of the big companies (and
vice versa).
December 12th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I just saw this post quoting me and wanted to update my thoughts on this challenge.
NextInsight, the company that TCAT, Inc. has used for years to manage our online schedules and trip planners, now offers export capabilities to GTFS. Importantly (for us, at least), the schedules are managed through a very simple web-based interface, which means that any of our front office staff can make on-the-fly updates.
As I referenced in my post on the GT group, in my opinion one of GT’s greatest weaknesses is NOT transit agencies’ unwillingness to provide data, but that getting the data into GTFS is too difficult for small agencies. NextInsight’s easy-to-use interface is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote that post.
Feel free to contact me: nt1 (at) tcatmail.com, or go to NextInsight’s website and send them an email.
Nicole Tedesco
Service and Operations Analyst
TCAT, Inc.
Ithaca, NY