Halifax Transit passengers who use mobile or web apps to find out when their bus will depart may soon benefit from real-time bus departure information that is now available for use by third-party application developers.
Today, Halifax Transit released a beta – or test – version of its GPS-based real-time bus location data through the municipality’s Open Data Catalogue. Halifax Transit already provides access to bus schedule and route information in static formats, but the new data release will allow organizations such as Google, Microsoft and the digital development community, to incorporate live departure information that will significantly improve public transit information applications.
Halifax Transit is initially launching the data feed to developers as a beta release. During this time, the technology team will be closely monitoring the service to identify and address potential technical issues. Users of the real-time data may experience occasional downtime or possible inaccuracies in data quality until the technology team has resolved any issues that are found. Subsequent communications will be issued once the beta version of the real-time data has been tested in the marketplace, and is deemed to be fully operational.
To access the beta version of the real-time data feed and a number of other publicly-accessible data sets, visit www.halifax.ca/opendata.
This data release is the latest feature of the new Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) system to be publicly rolled out, and will contribute to Halifax Transit’s goal of improving the customer experience by investing in service quality and reliability. For more information on this and other initiatives underway to improve Halifax Transit, visit www.maketransitbetter.ca.
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Source: Media Release