I've used some pretty ordinary public transport websites. To do something about the problem, I recently embarked on a mission to create a google maps overlay. The idea was to show a particular public transport provider how their information delivery could be improved. In the process I found out lots of interesting stuff about public transport information, so I thought I'd record that first.
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) website is probably the best example of delivering useful information to commuters. They have a public, open, real-time API for developers that has spawned some great tools such as iPhone apps that display real-time arrival times for your favourite stations, provide route-planning and much more.
BART also publishes a General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) zip file, which is a format developed by Google that allows you to provide amazing public transport functionality through google maps. Whenever you plan a route with google maps you can click on 'by public transit' and it will give you a selection of routes, times, and turn-by-turn directions for any walking required. See this random example trip I made in San Francisco.
All this is well and good for the US, but what about Australia? I started looking around, and I was amazed by the TransPerth website.
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Not only have they published a GTFS zip file so you can view stops and do fantastic trip planning via google maps, they also have a mobile website with real-time arrival times for bus stops and train stations, live timetables, and a 'stops near you' search on their website. The trip planner on the website is also the best I have ever used, and rivals that of google maps (they may just use a maps api...). Not surprisingly there is a Perth iPhone app, which seems to be much more feature-complete than the other capital cities, due to the data provided by TransPerth, which is infinitely preferable to screen-scraping. Of all the cities currently providing GTFS files, sadly Perth is the only Australian participating.
So, step 1 in giving commuters access to better public transport information is to publish a GTFS file. This at least means you have a database of all your stop coordinates, route names, timetable info etc. Updating the GTFS file is going to be easiest if you just use the GTFS format as your schema, it looks fairly sensible. I imagine there are lots of operators with giant excel spreadsheets holding route information, so it is probably already a step up. Next, take transperth as an example - they are kicking some goals.
PS. I was thinking - a cheap way to do GPS positioning for buses would be to stick an android phone in each one and hook it up to google latitude.
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