[Towered]

Wow, you'd need a guillotine to chop through the layers of cynicism here...

 

[rbt]

Wait a minute... I gave this a bit more thought. There is no way that CIS is capable of providing accurate data for these countdown clocks. Either they're going to replace CIS and install GPS units on all the vehicles, which would cost a lot more than $10 million, or these things are just going to be based on the published schedules.

All vehicles got GPS installed as a part of the automated stop announcements installation. They're also already reporting their positions back to central office.

The old CIS installation will be phased out once GPS reporting is determined to be reliable but the GPS system should be pretty solid in a couple of years.

Hooks are in place for this type of arrival prediction system already. Networking the stations and installation of monitors is essentially all that is required.

The subway system has been similarly upgraded. The only gap is networking in the platform displays which were designed with this capability in mind.


I'm really hoping that after a few years they'll start scheduling for specific headways instead of a time chart. That is, tell vehicles behind and ahead to speed up or slow down to maintain a service frequency.

 

[unimaginative2]

I didn't know that the GPS system was being used for reporting. Steve Munro's posts seem to imply that the old CIS system is still being used.

I also noticed that the TTC has budgeted $1.2 million to set up a website that sells passes. Now maybe I'm crazy, but doesn't that seem a little bit excessive? I mean, all you need is a portal and a credit card processing function. Even I could code the portal, and presumably you can buy a credit card function off the shelf. How is it that Miss Mae from Nebraska can start up a website for selling her handmade tea cosies, but it costs $1.2 million for the TTC to set up a website to sell passes?

Now that I think about it... I want that contract!

 

[ITcomputer]

Wow, you'd need a guillotine to chop through the layers of cynicism here...

In Canada it's a national sport.

 

[ITcomputer]

I didn't know that the GPS system was being used for reporting. Steve Munro's posts seem to imply that the old CIS system is still being used.

I also noticed that the TTC has budgeted $1.2 million to set up a website that sells passes. Now maybe I'm crazy, but doesn't that seem a little bit excessive? I mean, all you need is a portal and a credit card processing function. Even I could code the portal, and presumably you can buy a credit card function off the shelf. How is it that Miss Mae from Nebraska can start up a website for selling her handmade tea cosies, but it costs $1.2 million for the TTC to set up a website to sell passes?

Now that I think about it... I want that contract!

maybe that's for the whole website, they just finished at RFP for it.

 

[rbt]

I didn't know that the GPS system was being used for reporting. Steve Munro's posts seem to imply that the old CIS system is still being used.

At this time, CIS is still being used.

The intention is to phase out CIS once the GPS system has been shown to be reliable.

It is pretty standard practise when upgrading an essential system to run both in parallel for a large time period.

I also noticed that the TTC has budgeted $1.2 million to set up a website that sells passes. Now maybe I'm crazy, but doesn't that seem a little bit excessive? I mean, all you need is a portal and a credit card processing function. Even I could code the portal, and presumably you can buy a credit card function off the shelf. How is it that Miss Mae from Nebraska can start up a website for selling her handmade tea cosies, but it costs $1.2 million for the TTC to set up a website to sell passes?

You probably could. I have done that kind of thing several times.

It is a perfectly reasonable quote if it includes hooking into TTCs standard financial package/billing platform and tracks the purchase through until the time the envelope with the card hits the mailbox AND customer support interfaces for all of that stuff.

The website itself is likely only about 5% of the work required. Support infrastructure to make the one time purchase happen is 95% of the work.

Heck, most private firms budget about $150k just to write the design specifications for something like this.

 

[lordmandeep]

but it costs $1.2 million for the TTC to set up a website to sell passes?

unionized computer programmers??

 

[cassius]

rbt is right. If it's for the full site, and not just the ecom part, than $1.2M is a fair price.

As for Disparishun's comments, the TTC should absolutely open open the data for anyone to use. The only reason I can think of as to why they wouldn't do that is the union. Had they opened it, any Mr. IT guy or developer could probably get some very useful (for everyone) functions out of it. And I don't just mean opening up the schedule data but the real-time GPS locations amongst others should most definitely be available.

Example: Bob is running a bit early for catching the bus. It's the dead of winter and the darned thing only comes once every half hour. At home, he quickly checks a website that Mr. Anonymous IT built and sees the bus is 18 minutes away and is currently at the corner of Jane & Finch, just like the real-time map shows. He wants to grab a coffee at the corner first so he heads down there. He has himself one of those Blackberry thingamabobs and can continually check to make sure he's not going to miss his bus and have to wait another 30 minutes in the freezing weather.

Example 2: Steven has to catch the bus no later than 9:00am to make it to work in time. Fortunately for him, his cellphone receives a text message feed to him (by some web developer's website) alerting him that if he doesn't get to the stop in 8 minutes, the following bus won't arrive until 9:05am. Close call, but Steven knows it takes him 7 minutes to walk to his stop so he has his account settings configured to alert with a 1 minute grace-period.

The point is, there's countless things that could be done with the data 'opened' to anyone that wants to fiddle with it. That's where the good ideas and creativity will most likely come from. Not a transit commission whose primary function is... transit...

 

[lordmandeep]

the customer service sucks...

Someone asks for directions...

Ticket Collector: Just go on a train...

Person: Which One?

Ticket Collector: I don't know, man!!! Just get on a train, I don't get paid 50 grand for telling directions!!!