Travel time maps from mySociety

[Daniel Haran]

Hi all,

Here's a great project in the UK demonstrating what would be possible
if public transit data were liberated.

As some of you know, I've been trying to get my city of Halifax (NS)
to release bus stop locations and schedules, which they refuse to do.
While most Canadian cities will share *some* data, none that I know of
will share everything that is needed to make these travel-time maps.

Daniel.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tom Steinberg <[hidden email]>
Date: May 26, 2006 3:34 AM
Subject: [Geowanking] Travel time maps from mySociety
To: [hidden email]


The ever-gifted Chris Lightfoot has been writing code to scrape
journey planner websites, producing "a solution to Laplace's equation,
fixing its value to the value of the travel-time on the boundary of
its domain", and drinking coffee all in order to produce these
fascinating maps for your delectation:

http://www.mysociety.org/2006/travel-time-maps/

Hope you like.

Tom

--
Director, mySociety
07811 082158
http://www.mysociety.org/volunteertasks
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[Marcel Fortin]

The Toronto Transit Commission gladly provided us at the University of
Toronto Map Library their bus and train routes in Shapefile format, but
not the individual bus stops. Not out of any kind of restrictive policy,
but instead they simply did not have them in any kind of GIS or other
georeferenced format.  Could this be the case in Halifax?

It sounds like you maybe need to do some OpenStreetMap.org type mapping
yourself!  If you're familiar with their web pages, you can put in the
wiki of the area of interest and type of data you want to obtain. It's
the hope that others with the same area of interest can band together
with you to do the mapping using GPS units.  I see there are currently
no projects underway in Nova Scotia
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Canada:Nova_Scotia

------------------------------
Marcel Fortin
GIS and Map Librarian, University of Toronto
130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5 416 946 0522

Daniel Haran wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Here's a great project in the UK demonstrating what would be possible
> if public transit data were liberated.
>
> As some of you know, I've been trying to get my city of Halifax (NS)
> to release bus stop locations and schedules, which they refuse to do.
> While most Canadian cities will share *some* data, none that I know of
> will share everything that is needed to make these travel-time maps.
>
> Daniel.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tom Steinberg <[hidden email]>
> Date: May 26, 2006 3:34 AM
> Subject: [Geowanking] Travel time maps from mySociety
> To: [hidden email]
>
>
> The ever-gifted Chris Lightfoot has been writing code to scrape
> journey planner websites, producing "a solution to Laplace's equation,
> fixing its value to the value of the travel-time on the boundary of
> its domain", and drinking coffee all in order to produce these
> fascinating maps for your delectation:
>
> http://www.mysociety.org/2006/travel-time-maps/
>
> Hope you like.
>
> Tom
>
> --
> Director, mySociety
> 07811 082158
> http://www.mysociety.org/volunteertasks
> _______________________________________________
> Geowanking mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca

[Daniel Haran]

Hi Martin,

The data was provided for a university project in Halifax, so I know
it exists. The reason given for not releasing the data after my
freedom of information request was that the data costs money to
compile and therefore has market value- they will in the future be
selling this data.

Universities have a much easier time getting access than individual
citizens or even non-profit groups. What license terms do you have for
those shapefiles? IIRC, the schedules were online and easily parseable
too so if licenses are decent, hackers should be able to create
similar maps for your region.

The TTC seems far more enlightened than Metro Transit. The reason I
got interested in this in the first place was that we didn't even have
a route planner- something the TTC has had for a while now.

Daniel.


On 5/26/06, Marcel Fortin <[hidden email]> wrote:

> The Toronto Transit Commission gladly provided us at the University of
> Toronto Map Library their bus and train routes in Shapefile format, but
> not the individual bus stops. Not out of any kind of restrictive policy,
> but instead they simply did not have them in any kind of GIS or other
> georeferenced format.  Could this be the case in Halifax?
>
> It sounds like you maybe need to do some OpenStreetMap.org type mapping
> yourself!  If you're familiar with their web pages, you can put in the
> wiki of the area of interest and type of data you want to obtain. It's
> the hope that others with the same area of interest can band together
> with you to do the mapping using GPS units.  I see there are currently
> no projects underway in Nova Scotia
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Canada:Nova_Scotia
>
> ------------------------------
> Marcel Fortin
> GIS and Map Librarian, University of Toronto
> 130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5 416 946 0522

[Marcel Fortin]

The license is not terribly restrictive with the TTC. In fact, much to
my surprise, they did not charge any money. Few Toronto city departments
are so generous.  I doubt they would charge the average citizen for the
routes, or restrict their use for that matter. Not sure though since
ours is most definetly an academic license.

Yes, we do have an easier time getting data in the academic setting,
now. This has only been the case for the last few years and much work
remains to be done, and many governments to enlighten to our cause.
Hence my presence on the list!

Marcel

Daniel Haran wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> The data was provided for a university project in Halifax, so I know
> it exists. The reason given for not releasing the data after my
> freedom of information request was that the data costs money to
> compile and therefore has market value- they will in the future be
> selling this data.
>
> Universities have a much easier time getting access than individual
> citizens or even non-profit groups. What license terms do you have for
> those shapefiles? IIRC, the schedules were online and easily parseable
> too so if licenses are decent, hackers should be able to create
> similar maps for your region.
>
> The TTC seems far more enlightened than Metro Transit. The reason I
> got interested in this in the first place was that we didn't even have
> a route planner- something the TTC has had for a while now.
>
> Daniel.
>
>
> On 5/26/06, Marcel Fortin <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>>The Toronto Transit Commission gladly provided us at the University of
>>Toronto Map Library their bus and train routes in Shapefile format, but
>>not the individual bus stops. Not out of any kind of restrictive policy,
>>but instead they simply did not have them in any kind of GIS or other
>>georeferenced format.  Could this be the case in Halifax?
>>
>>It sounds like you maybe need to do some OpenStreetMap.org type mapping
>>yourself!  If you're familiar with their web pages, you can put in the
>>wiki of the area of interest and type of data you want to obtain. It's
>>the hope that others with the same area of interest can band together
>>with you to do the mapping using GPS units.  I see there are currently
>>no projects underway in Nova Scotia
>>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Canada:Nova_Scotia
>>
>>------------------------------
>>Marcel Fortin
>>GIS and Map Librarian, University of Toronto
>>130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5 416 946 0522
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca

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------------------------------
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------------------------------
Marcel Fortin
GIS and Map Librarian, University of Toronto
130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A5 416 946 0522