Hello. I don't really know how many people actually use transit here, that including things like buses, trains, or other transport services that follow a fairly fixed route with a schedule, so I don't really know how relevant this is, but I find that transit can be a wonderful complement to the point-to-point nature of personal vehicles like electric bikes and scooter in bringing benefits like...
-Substantially Increased range
-Insignificant costs (Especially true since I get a bus pass through my university)
-Significant convenience - as fun as might think it is to bike for hours on end to go 20 miles, I honestly would prefer to use that time to do useful things on my laptop or read a book instead of risking my life as a land-pilot. Honestly, I see "land piloting" as a task that I would always want someone / something else to do as it's irrecoverable time that comes to no "super direct" benefit (That is, it isn't necessarily connected to the benefit it provides) to myself, so I still dislike "driving" and "scooting" when I have the convenience of some other entity doing it.
So, I found transit planners that help navigate and find the best routes within complex transit systems. This was great, however, it seemed to suppose all users were walking between bus routes so this had inherent limits on range and "timing" when it came to "practical buses" to switch to. If one were to increase the range and reduce the timing through faster methods as biking or scooting, this would enable more possible route combinations which would possibly drastically increase transport efficiency (minimizing time, minimizing transfer amounts, whatever preference the user haves - I personally like to minimize transfers), but transit planners don't take this into account. Furthermore, there seemed to be no extendable transit planners to add this functionality as all the ones existing were "proprietary", and it further had the disadvantage you had to have an internet connection. Without the $60/month wireless connection fee from cellular plans, you pretty much can't do "spur of the moment" planning in getting from point to point, that one can do with a car, without really significant effort and time in planning.
So, I'm starting an initiative, to make open source multi-modal transit planning software. I want to make it as convenient as possible to use the transit system in making efficient use out of it for all users, including those with scooters or bikes, without requiring an active internet connection. I think one should be able to plan whenever, where-ever, without being tied to an expensive cellular contract or relying on the divine luck of stumbling across a local unsecured network. With this convenience, I think it should incorporate a map unto which you can point and click where you want to begin and where you want to go, and then it'll automatically evaluate the route and show it graphically.
So, if anyone wants to contribute, either through feature requests, visions in how things should be done, things to consider, programming help, whatever, feel free to do so. Things are kind of at an amateur-ish state right now and I'm now right now just setting up an SDL window along with the wxWidgets backbone for the GUI user interface. I'm also curious what might anyone recommend for developing open-source software and what a good medium for putting short-term and long-term development goals are. I find that I usually require a goal-based path in order to complete significant projects in an optimally efficient manner. Otherwise, I just tend to dilly-dally.
-Substantially Increased range
-Insignificant costs (Especially true since I get a bus pass through my university)
-Significant convenience - as fun as might think it is to bike for hours on end to go 20 miles, I honestly would prefer to use that time to do useful things on my laptop or read a book instead of risking my life as a land-pilot. Honestly, I see "land piloting" as a task that I would always want someone / something else to do as it's irrecoverable time that comes to no "super direct" benefit (That is, it isn't necessarily connected to the benefit it provides) to myself, so I still dislike "driving" and "scooting" when I have the convenience of some other entity doing it.
So, I found transit planners that help navigate and find the best routes within complex transit systems. This was great, however, it seemed to suppose all users were walking between bus routes so this had inherent limits on range and "timing" when it came to "practical buses" to switch to. If one were to increase the range and reduce the timing through faster methods as biking or scooting, this would enable more possible route combinations which would possibly drastically increase transport efficiency (minimizing time, minimizing transfer amounts, whatever preference the user haves - I personally like to minimize transfers), but transit planners don't take this into account. Furthermore, there seemed to be no extendable transit planners to add this functionality as all the ones existing were "proprietary", and it further had the disadvantage you had to have an internet connection. Without the $60/month wireless connection fee from cellular plans, you pretty much can't do "spur of the moment" planning in getting from point to point, that one can do with a car, without really significant effort and time in planning.
So, I'm starting an initiative, to make open source multi-modal transit planning software. I want to make it as convenient as possible to use the transit system in making efficient use out of it for all users, including those with scooters or bikes, without requiring an active internet connection. I think one should be able to plan whenever, where-ever, without being tied to an expensive cellular contract or relying on the divine luck of stumbling across a local unsecured network. With this convenience, I think it should incorporate a map unto which you can point and click where you want to begin and where you want to go, and then it'll automatically evaluate the route and show it graphically.
So, if anyone wants to contribute, either through feature requests, visions in how things should be done, things to consider, programming help, whatever, feel free to do so. Things are kind of at an amateur-ish state right now and I'm now right now just setting up an SDL window along with the wxWidgets backbone for the GUI user interface. I'm also curious what might anyone recommend for developing open-source software and what a good medium for putting short-term and long-term development goals are. I find that I usually require a goal-based path in order to complete significant projects in an optimally efficient manner. Otherwise, I just tend to dilly-dally.
