NextBus

NextBus
By: Maciej Derulski

About NextBus
NextBus is a data organization which provides infrastructure for municipal transit systems that enables live transit feeds over http. Currently 32 transit agencies are participating in providing data through municipal open data initiatives. NextBus turns this data into standardized and uniform public XML feeds accessible by using URL queries. Developers are able to use the data to develop applications that inform users of transit vehicle arrival predictions, and visualize vehicle locations on maps. Several mobile applications leveraging this data currently exist, including six for Android devices.

Strenghts/Weaknesses
The XML feeds are well documented with information on how the url strings should be formed to get the appropriate dataset. The URL strings contain a command and parameters which instruct the server to generate the requested XML file. For example the url [] will return an XML that contains a list of TTC routes. All commands and parameters are well documented with examples of XML output. Sending requests for data is a trivial task for the developer.

NextBus provides visualizations for vehicle locations using both Open Street Maps and Google Maps on their website to demonstrate a practical application of this data. The maps draw a red path through the route and plot all stop and vehicle locations (see figure 1 & 2). Hovering or clicking on the stop locations creates a ‘bubble’ popup that shows stop information and next vehicle arrival predictions (see figure 3 & 4).

A major shortcoming of the visualization is that it is not mobile friendly. The information is most useful when viewed from a phone since most people would check it on the go. However, NextBus only provides these visualizations to demonstrate a practical application of the data they provide, and other third party mobile app using this data exist. Also, their web interface design looks dated, but again it does not interfere with communicating and demonstrating the possibilities of using their data.

Effectiveness and Possible Improvement
Taking aside problems viewing the visualization on mobile devices, NextBus does a good job of visualizing the underlying data. It’s easy to see on both OpenStreetMap and Google Map the locations of all vehicles for a route, as well as the routes path. On way to improve the visualization would be to perhaps ignore geography and just draw a scaled path with markers for major intersections. This would eliminate the need to zoom and move around a live map.

Conclusion
The primary purpose of NextBus is not to show visualization but provide live transit data so third party developers can use it in their own applications. Transit agencies can supply their data to NextBus and allow others to develop apps which saves them the burden of hiring expensive in-house developers. The City of Toronto states that this data can be used for any lawful purposes which opens the doors for innovative uses of their data.