Making Transit Easier with OneBusAway

There are several benefits public transit systems provide to a region; they promote sustainable and livable cities, are friendly to the environment, and provide an alternative to automobile travel.   One important factor of a public transit system’s success is how accessible transit schedule and route information is to the users of the system.

Two graduate students at the University of Washington are combining their passion for transit and research to help push this effort forward.  Kari Watkins and Brian Ferris are the creators of OneBusAway, a set of transit information tools meant to provide information to transit riders in order to increase ridership and user satisfaction.

Watkins states this about the goal of the project, “We would like to help people overcome the barriers they face from getting starting riding transit for the first time all the way through knowing when their bus is coming each time they take it.”

OneBusAway is an open source software project that extracts real-time transit data and makes it accessible through a variety of communication channels, including the web, touch-tone phones, several mobile devices (including the iPhone and Android phones), as well as through text messaging.  Currently, OneBusAway serves the Seattle Metro Area and Pierce County area.   At this point, the project is still research related, but growth plans may be in the future. At their most recent estimate, approximately 20,000 unique visitors use the system each week.

This is an exciting project that manifests the value of good traveler information systems.  For more information, check out the links below:

<OneBusAway Webpage>
<Research Paper on OneBusAway>
<OneBusAway on Twitter >