The bus is late, yet again, big surprise. How often do you stare at a bus schedule attached at the bus stop and wonder if it is just a joke from the very beginning?

The city of San Francisco is about to have a change with its troubled public transportation system, and a simple technology, Open Data, can help its cause.

Commuters in SF are now able to receive realtime updates on their phones through apps and SMS, which provide far better predictions of the arrival time of the buses. As you may note, Translink also has apps and SMS functions, but it only gives you the scheduled time of the next bus, and 99% of the time it is inaccurate.

Not only the buses are nearly impossible to track, Skytrains share the same characteristic. It is impossible to know when the next train will arrive, and which line (Expo or Millennium) until the very last second when you actually see the train. This troubled commuters to efficiently plan their schedule and be on-time.

This is a excellent example of how IT Technology can help the business. It is bizarre to know that simple technologies can improve our transit system by miles, however, nothing is being implemented to make commuting more convenient, and Translink still wonders why people drive instead of ride?

When I was in Taiwan, the informations of the next 2 trains were clearly displayed without sacrificing the advertising ability (Taipei Metro)

Old school but serve the purpose, I was in Germany and they have these, also clear and informative (Berlin U-Bahn)

Thanks, weather reports really help when I can just look outside for myself (Vancouver Skytrain)