Over the last few weeks, I was a part of the beta test program for the Train Tracker system launched by the CTA today. I tested this Web-based application on the Red, Brown, and Blue lines in about six different trips (riding multiple trains) using an iPhone, an iPad, and an iMac. My main mobile experience was using my BlackBerry Curve that is about 6 months old.
In my experience, the system works great and it is a very positive addition to the overall CTA communications regime. Here’s why:
SMOOTH DESIGN
It is a native Web application that runs in a browser. That means it’s not an “app” — there’s nothing to download, no device-specific versions to cover– just go to the page on the Web and it works. The menus make sense, the flow is simple, and the interface is what you’d expect it to be– route-colored bars white familiar typography. Here’s a look at Train Tracker start page on the iPhone:
I also like the language they use– not transit jargon, but makes sense for regular riders. Here’s a nice example when choosing a station for a particular line on the standard Web interface:
“Pick a stop, get arrivals.” In this small screenshot, there are many terms of art (route, stop, arrivals, line, and, of course the color-coded lines themselves), and they are all used in logical ways. It’s well-organized and standard enough to make sense to people with no prior knowledge of the CTA while making easy for people to find “their” line. One nice touch is how the background fill of the Stops-list pulldown menu turns to the color of the chosen line.
There are other nice design touches. The standard Web view uses the word “Approaching” when the train is just about to arrive, and on the mobile version it is the truncated to the economically-lettered “Due”.
ACCURATE PREDICTIONS
Speaking of the word “due”, I found the core service– telling you when the train will come– to be higly accurate. In my experience, the predictions were never off by more than a minute. Here’s a look at a “Due train” indicator on BlackBerry at the Belmont stop:
And, sure enough, here’s the Due train:
In their announcement, the CTA gave the bare bones on how it works:
Estimated arrival times will be generated through a combination of scheduling information and data collected by the CTA’s QuicTrak program, which monitors signaling systems and indicates when a portion of track is occupied by a train. An average transit time is determined by measuring how long it takes a train to travel a portion of track. By averaging the travel times of the last five trains to move across a portion of track, the CTA can calculate the estimated arrival times for trains at each station.
That means that if the trains are on the track, they have a pretty good idea when it will arrive at a given station. It also means that if your train (we always like to be possessive that way, don’t we?) hasn’t started on the tracks yet, especially if you’re near the beginning of the line.
OPEN ARCHITECTURE
Based on my take on the data that feeds the Train Tracker, it will allow enterprising developers to download the data. Here’s what they have to say in the help & notes section of Train Tracker:
If you’re a developer, you may be wondering about APIs for CTA Train Tracker data. Because this is an early beta and we’re still working on certain aspects of the underlying data, we’re not ready to give you an API just yet. The good news, however, is that we are working on it! We do hope you can bear with us for just a bit longer so we can give you a solid, reliable and stable API on which to build your apps.
And a cautionary tale to scrape-lovers:
Note that because the Web site (and the code behind it) is likely to change regularly, attempting to “scrape” information off the Web pages is likely to cause instability in your apps, and our site may reject access to anyone making an excessive number of requests to ensure overall availability. We strongly encourage you to wait for an official API. Thank you, in advance, for your patience.
Based on what I know about the Web team at the CTA, and their commitment to developers, they will come through on this front. Having said that, I would strongly encourage developers to scrape the current output and figure out what’s going on behind the scenes. Harper Reed did that to pretty good effect with the unofficial Bus Tracker API.
HOW IT WORKS ON MOBILE
So here’s the basic steps in finding out when your train is coming:
Choose a route:
Choose a stop:
Get arrivals:
They also have some thoughtful options (on both the standard and mobile views). You can sort the results by Route, Time to arrival, or Platform side, and you can choose how many results to view. The default is to sort by route and display five results per set of arrivals (FACT CHECK):
Based on some of the things I experienced during the beta, the CTA has been very thorough with their testing. For instance, they pushed 796 alerts through the system here:
Nice stress test!
There are some quibbles to be had. Alerts are not handled as gracefully as they could be, although I’m told that this is not present on the live site. After clicking on an alert, you have to scroll down through the mobile site navigation in order to read the content:
Another important note, while you’re out and about, is that you have to refresh the screen manually in order to see new arrival times. If you’re viewing Train Tracker in the standard Web view refreshes automatically. So you can keep a browser window open while you’re getting ready to leave work, and the page will keep you updated automatically.
This was just one person testing the beta version of the Train Tracker. The CTA had others testing it, and I’m sure they got lots of real-world feedback on how to improve it. The best part begins now– when the great mass of regular riders get a crack at it. Based on what I’ve seen over the years here on the CTA Tattler, you won’t be shy in letting them know what you think!