A solution to the issues of catching buses

[seangriffin]

Greetings everyone,

I am new to this forum, though it was suggested that I post an article here about a solution I've developed to what is arguably one of the biggest public transportation problems we have - catching buses on time.

We all know the issue all too well, and I'm sure there are many members in this forum that openly post their grievances on the matter.  I myself am a resident of Brisbane, and as all Brisbaners know, our public bus system here, or more-so, our passenger information systems, leave something to be desired.

I am a regular Translink commuter, and I know all to well how hard it is to catch a bus on time.  Whether it be that the buses are early or late, the bus shelter has damaged timetables, the electronic timetable signpost is on the blink, or inaccurate with completely different buses arriving, there always seems to be room for improvement.

We knew there had to be a better way.  So I teamed up with another friend (and commuter) and we've developed a solution, that not only works in Brisbane, or Australia for that matter, but the world.

Our solution is in the form of an iPhone app.  We (commuters) all know how popular iPhones have become, and you'll be hard pressed to find a bus (in Brisbane) where there isn't a commuter using there phone, either for entertainment, social networking or calling home because their bus is late    We wanted to empower these people, by giving them an application for their phone, that let's them share the location of their bus with others in the community.

It's a community based solution.  The concept is simple.  Thousands of people world-wide (not just Australia) own mobile phones equipped with GPS transponders.  These devices are capable of locating any vehicle which a user may travel on.  Our iPhone solution allows such users, whilst riding a bus, to automatically broadcast the location of their bus to other travellers nearby.  Those travellers waiting for a bus, in turn, use this app to watch your bus, and the buses of other users, as they travel around the streets in your town.

The more users riding buses with this app, the more buses can be seen on the map, and the more people it helps.  It's a simple case of "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours".

As I've said, it's a community based app, and will only work if people get on board.  We've created a website for more information:

www.wheresthebus.info

I've attached a YouTube video I've created to better explain how it works.

Our solution is fairly new, though we've already attract many users world-wide, and am happy to say that we have at least one commuter per hour using the app somewhere in the world.  Which I think is quite impressive at this stage.

Thanks,

Sean.

[ozbob]

Welcome Sean!  We have another thread going already here --> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=6046.0

I will lock this and you can continue in the other thread.