ITS Research Program, UW

Busview X:
Graphical Display of Real-Time Transit Coach Locations

Sponsors:

TransNow (U.S. Department of Transportation)
Washington State Department of Transportation

Description:

This project designed and demonstrated a system prototype to provide real-time transit coach locations to the traveling public. Real-time coach information was delivered over the Internet to any workstation in a University of Washington campus office. It also served as an APTS communications testbed for evaluating the utility and value of providing real-time transit information to the traveling public.

Previous research efforts made coach location data available through the Internet. This project concentrated on making the existing data source more robust. Efforts centered on developing a user interface/graphical presentation and increasing data accuracy. The project conducted a user survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the application once it was made public.

The application was called Busview X and ran in an X Windows environment. The test phase for this application has been completed, and the application is no longer being supported. A new, platform independent Java version is available as part of the Smart Trek project. The illustration below is a small-scale version of the screen that was produced by Busview X. The view is of downtown Seattle.