iPhone Ap for CTA (Chicago, Bartlett: luxury, living, buses)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by steeltreehat

You don't need an I-phone application to figure out how to ride the bus.

You could use a ShutApp.

[jman07]

Why are you asking us. Just search the App Store. DUH! Yes there is one!

[danfed]

I guess you roll the dice with any online community and this is no exception. Thanks to those who contributed meaningful information. Amazing how many people have big mouths when they can hide behind an alias and a computer screen...

I realize that there are a number of sources for an "official" schedule but having an app that shows predictively how far a bus is away from your stop is the kind of thing that I'm looking for. I have been using Embark CTA and Metra which work quite well for my needs but are limited to trains/"L" whereas I was looking for some bus options from places that I'm considering moving to Union Station as I'm intent upon being a reverse commuter.

If anyone has any specific experience with bus only aps, that would be great to know. There are quite a few in the app store but rather than play the hit or miss game I thought I'd check to see if people had actual experiences and recommendations. Thanks again for the help and insight.

[HikeND]

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I saw this a few days ago. Designing Chicago. A group is seeking advice (and funding) from the public to develop a new transit app. Let's hope they can get something innovative up and running. I'm not sure if an existing app has fully integrated CTA and Metra data allowing for easy transfers between the two. Maybe that's something worth suggesting.

[JBVirtuoso]

As tedious as it sounds, I'd recommend just playing the hit or miss game. Start with the most popular ones, obviously. I say this because I tend to have a wildly different taste in apps than my friends do. With something like a transit tracker, each one is going to have features you like and don't like, and it's kind of hard to describe them all without experiencing it yourself. For instance, after years of experimenting with weather apps, I've finally just bookmarked the NWS forecast page. Completely no frills and really ugly, but it loads quickly and provides accurate information.

The transit app I use is Chicago Transit Tracker (Lite), but I have an Android phone. My guess is that there's an iPhone equivalent. I like it because I always use the same half a dozen or so stops, so I can mark them as favorites, and every time I open the app up, it gives me the arrival times for those bus stops on the home screen.

[Thepreacherswife]

Originally Posted by danfed

I realize that there are a number of sources for an "official" schedule but having an app that shows predictively how far a bus is away from your stop is the kind of thing that I'm looking for. I have been using Embark CTA and Metra which work quite well for my needs but are limited to trains/"L" whereas I was looking for some bus options from places that I'm considering moving to Union Station as I'm intent upon being a reverse commuter.

All the apps that use the CTA's API are sharing the same data, so there's not going to be any changes in predictions from one app to another (AFAIK none of them massage the data any further to try and make the predictions "more accurate"). The only difference is the interface, and everybody likes different things in an interface, so you may be reduced to giving several a test run.

[Lucky Clover]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Your statement proves you are not keeping up on ANYTHING dealing with this. You have got to be kidding me.

Chicago is one of the leaders in the US in the open data movement with NYC, by far which started on Rahm's dime. There are tons of hackathons and app contests that the city hosts and doles out prizes for. He has helped the 1871 startup community (and startup community in general) flourish and greatly grow. Not only that but he's also worked at attracting the U of Illinois to open up a computing lab in the city (University of Illinois unveils plans for 'Bell Labs-like' technology park in Chicago - Blogs On Politics - Crain's Chicago Business), and then really pushing ultra high speed broadband for many many areas (City of Chicago :: Error Page) and not to mention getting Google to move its mobility department to the merchandise mart.

Opening government, the Chicago way - O'Reilly Radar




I write apps with open data and I have to deal with this stuff everyday from multiple cities around the world and Chicago is easily one of the top 3 leaders in the US at this and one of the top in the world. Here you go:

https://data.cityofchicago.org/

Just curious,
Are you calling Chicago a tech city?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by tawfiqmp

Just curious,
Are you calling Chicago a tech city?

Is it a tech city? It has the tech industry especially for consulting and services for which most people are completely unaware of..a lot more than people think (I know this because it's my line of work). Is it as big as the bay area, Boston, Seattle, etc? No.

The point is that you were saying Rahm needs to do more of this and that (and saying okay everywhere has transit apps), and it's been going on since the day he stepped into offfice. Chicago is one of the leaders in the country in open government data (i.e. open in the sense of technology...i.e. the **** that provides data to all sorts of apps) and almost everything tech wise for the city has improved under his mayoral tenure and looks like it will only get better.

[steeltreehat]

Originally Posted by Drover

You could use a ShutApp.

What I-phone app did you use to come up with that response?

[Lucky Clover]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Is it a tech city? It has the tech industry especially for consulting and services for which most people are completely unaware of..a lot more than people think (I know this because it's my line of work). Is it as big as the bay area, Boston, Seattle, etc? No.

The point is that you were saying Rahm needs to do more of this and that (and saying okay everywhere has transit apps), and it's been going on since the day he stepped into offfice. Chicago is one of the leaders in the country in open government data (i.e. open in the sense of technology...i.e. the **** that provides data to all sorts of apps) and almost everything tech wise for the city has improved under his mayoral tenure and looks like it will only get better.

Gotcha. For the record, I was just comparing NY's Tech Meetup and how Bloomberg was an active participantt in that (or at least that what I meant to compare). I know we have Tech Week here though which is awesome.