Many of the public transport vehicles in Sofia may look as if they date back half a century; the company that owns and operates them, Sofia Public Transport Company, abbreviated in Bulgarian as SKGT, is making small steps into this century in other areas. In early May, SKGT launched a new section of its website, where users can find out what time the next bus is expected to arrive at a specific bus stop within the SKGT network.
If you cannot make buses run on schedule, you make the schedule adjust itself to the buses.
A quick test of the new website with the bus stop down the street from the office saw bus number 306 roll by underneath our office window one minute before its estimated arrival time at the stop. Pretty neat for a first impression.
But is a website really the most convenient way to find out what time to expect the next bus?
The time it takes to shut down one’s computer, put on shoes and a jacket, leave home or the office (lock the door and don’t forget the alarm) and to actually get to that near-by bus stop is sufficient to defeat the purpose of the site. With most city transport running at half-hour schedules, how much would waiting time really be reduced when there is so much time between checking that online schedule and both you and the bus arriving at the bus stop?
As part of an earlier phase of the same project, SKGT installed electronic signs at larger stops throughout the city displaying the estimated arrival time of the next bus.
This is exactly the other moment where it hardly matters much when the next bus will arrive. You’ll have to wait for it anyway and there’s really nothing else you can do meanwhile.
Those “larger bus stops” are just a handful in the entire SKGT network, anyways.
Besides, the only thing the SKGT website tells us is when to expect the bus at one bus stop. There is no way you can plan your route, know what time your bus leaves and what time it will arrive at a certain destination, not to mention taking two or more buses, trolleys or trams to get there.
If only SKGT would open up all this data via an application programming interface (API) to external programmers. Imagine: you want to go to a cinema, you find out from the movie theatre’s website (or any other online programme website) what time the film is being shown, and with just a few clicks the site also tells you which bus gets you from home to the cinema and with how much time to spare so you can get popcorn and a drink.
The possible scenarios where this information is more useful are endless, and in very few of these scenarios there’s a computer and an internet connection at hand.
The SKGT website, in its current version, offers several ways of finding out what time the next bus is expected. The first one, and by far the quickest, is by entering a unique bus stop identifier number. If you’ve always wondered why public transport stops have unique identifier numbers, now you know.
A slightly more conventional way is when you already know what bus, tram or trolley you need to take. You select the means of transport and line number and a graph of the route lets you select a stop from a menu. Mind you, the graph is not clickable!
By far the most cumbersome solution is the map. It shows a map of Sofia, with all routes and stops. The map itself lacks resolution and all controls are non-standard, highly counter-intuitive and quite often don’t even work with one another.
If SKGT would make the data available to other programmers, pretty soon mash-ups would appear, combining transport schedules and arrival times at bus stops, with Yahoo! or Google maps, lists of restaurants, cinemas and other public meeting places and events.
The small step SKGT took with this project could actually become a giant leap.
http://www.skgt-bg.com
