8 messages in com.googlegroups.googletransitRe: Getting transit providers to use ...| From | Sent On | Attachments |
|---|---|---|
| Victor | 05 Apr 2007 14:13 | |
| Chris Luth | 05 Apr 2007 15:42 | |
| Chris Luth | 05 Apr 2007 20:24 | |
| Chris Luth | 05 Apr 2007 21:38 | |
| Chris Luth | 06 Apr 2007 12:03 | |
| Chris Luth | 23 Apr 2007 23:31 | |
| Chris Luth | 30 Apr 2007 14:05 | |
| DHofmann | 01 May 2007 22:58 |
| Subject: | Re: Getting transit providers to use Google Transit |
|---|---|
| From: | Chris Luth (chri...@gmail.com) |
| Date: | 04/23/2007 11:31:56 PM |
| List: | com.googlegroups.googletransit |
Update:
So far, I think I've gotten responses from all of the agencies I've contacted.
I didn't receive a response directly from the Anchorage (Alaska) PeopleMover, but I did see that someone from PeopleMover posted to this discussion group (alas, nobody posted a response; hopefully they did find out what they needed).
I believe I forwarded (Los Angeles County) MTA's response to the group here, but here's what they said again: "As a follow-up to our earlier response, you may be pleased to know that our Webmaster has advised that our staff has met with Google about their product and will be working to provide Google with the tools to add Metro to the list."
Metrolink responded with a human-written email that they had forwarded the info to the proper personnel.
Amtrak (nationwide) said they'd forwarded the info to their webmasters, who are always looking at improvements to the site (just a generic form letter, but at least they responded), and I just got a very encouraging note from someone in Caltrans Division of Rail (which operates Amtrak California and the CalTrain):
"Thanks for the lead. This is something I've been interested in for a long time. Right now, I do this, but without a lot of the detail necessary to create comfort in the user. I've written the lab to ask about the program. Right now, the only California Transit providers listed are Burbank and Orange County, so it's not too useful on a trip from Fresno to the Marina District in San Francisco or to Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
We'll see where this leads. It's a great concept, especially tied to Amtrak service."
He's caught the vision of how useful this would be--I love his example of easily finding out how to get from [say, a branch office in] Fresno to [the company headquarters in] the Marina District in the City. That's what Google Transit is all about.
Now, let's hope the Google guys can find time to really work with this and make California (their home state!) a shining example of how Google Transit can help transit companies serve their customers and increase ridership!
Chris
On Apr 6, 11:03 am, "Chris Luth" <chri...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've received one reply so far--it's from the Ventura County Transportation Commission. It's good news! Let's hope MTA and Metrolink are as responsive...
Here's his response:
Chris,
Thank you for your suggestion, we think its a good one but one that will have to wait a little bit. We talked to Google about three months ago and received instructions on how to input our information and the data format it needs to be in. Unfortunately, its going to take us some time to convert all of our data into the right format and once its submitted to Google there is no set schedule on when they will publish it.
But the good news is we're working on it!
Thanks so much for your interest and support.
Steve DeGeorge VCTC Director of Technology
I also received a reply from the MTA saying that my message has been forwarded to the webmaster. I've heard from others that they haven't been very responsive. Perhaps we need to mount a letter-writing campaign to them--I'll let you know what the response I get from them is.
Chris
On Apr 5, 8:38 pm, "Chris Luth" <chri...@gmail.com> wrote:
OK, an update for the L.A. crowd:
Apparently there are a lot more bus services in the L.A. area than I was aware of. I obtained the following list from the Metrolink Ride Guide (check out Metrolink's new site--it's actually useful!). This list is straight out of the How to Ride Guide (pp. 19-20). It doesn't list Web sites, but it should be fairly trivial to find them:
L.A. County EZ Transit Pass Operators - Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) (661) 945-9445 - Burbank Local Transit (818) 246-4BLT(4258) - City of Commerce (323) 887-4419 - Culver City Municipal Bus Lines (310) 253-6510 - Foothill Transit (800) RIDE-INFO(743-3463) - Gardena Municipal Bus Lines (310) 324-1475 - Glendale Beeline (818) 548-3961 - LADOT/DASH (310) 808-2273 - Long Beach Transit (562) 591-2301 - Montebello Bus Lines (323) 887-4545 - Monterey Park Spirit Bus (626) 307-7842 - Norwalk Transit (562) 929-5550 - Pasadena ARTS (626) 791-7200 - Santa Clarita Transit (661) 294-1BUS(1287) - Santa Fe Springs Metro Express (562) 409-4572 - South Pasadena Gold Link (626) 403-7214 - Torrance MAX (310)781-6930 - Torrance Transit (310)618-6266 - MetroBus & Metro Rail (Blue, Red, Green, & Gold Lines,www.metro.net Metro Rapid & Metro Local) (213) 626-4455
In Orange County: - City of Anaheim Downtown Rail Shuttle (714) 765-5277 -OCTA, all local routes (714) 636-7433
In Riverside County: - Riverside Transit Agency (RTA), to/from Metrolink stations (800) 800-7821 - City of Corona, Corona Cruiser & Dial-A-Ride (909) 734-7220
In San Diego County - NCTD Breeze at Oceanside (760) 966-6500
In Ventura County - City of Simi Valley local routes (805) 583-6456
In San Bernardino County - Omnitrans (800) 9OMNIBUS(966-6428) - Mountain Area Transit (MARTA) from Big Bear to San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga stations (909) 878-5200
In Los Angeles County - City of Baldwin Park Pumpkin & Teal Shuttles (626) 337-1555 - City of West Covina at Baldwin Park & Covina (800) 425-5777 - City of El Monte Flair Park & Civic Center Shuttles (626) 580-2242 - City of Glendora at Covina (626) 914-8233 - City of Azusa at Covina (626) 812-5206 - Burbank Airport Parking Lot C/Rail Station Shuttle (818) 840-8837 or (818) 840-8840
OTHER RAIL & TRANSIT SERVICES The following is a list of services available at some Metrolink stations. Additional ticket purchase from these transit providers may be necessary for travel. Call the numbers listed for more information. - Amtrak (800) USA-RAIL(872-7245) - Brea Dial-A-Ride (800) 581-7433 - Children's Court Shuttle (626) 458-3956 - Camarillo Dial-A-Ride (805) 988-4228 - Coaster commuter rail (to San Diego) (800) 262-7837 - Flexcar Car-sharing (213) 482-FLEX(3539) orwww.flexcar.com - Mission City Transit at Sylmar/San Fernando (800) 266-6883 - Moorpark City Bus (805) 529-6864 - Santa Monica Transit (The Big Blue Bus) (310) 451-5444 - South Coast Area Transit (SCAT) at Oxnard (805) 487-4222 or (805) 643-3158 - VISTA (Ventura) (800) 438-1112 - Walnut (City of) Dial-A-Ride (909) 594-1284 - Greyhound (800) 231-2222
Hope this provides a starting resource for getting in touch with these agencies. Maybe a big letter-writing campaign is in order? :-D
Chris
On Apr 5, 7:24 pm, "Chris Luth" <chri...@gmail.com> wrote:
OK, I just sent emails to Metrolink, Los Angeles MTA, Ventura County Transit Commission and Simi Valley Transit (the Southern California transit agencies I use most often) and urged them to partner with Google Transit.
I'll let you all know if I receive responses from them (positive or negative).
Here are the talking points I used (feel free to plagiarize from me):
-Google Transit costs you nothing (except a little bit of time from
your IT department configuring your route/schedule database to export
to a Google Transit-readable format)
-Google Transit will drive more people to you, increasing your
ridership, as they discover how easy a trip using public transit can
be
-Even if you already have a route finder/trip planner, you will get
more potential riders by using Google Transit because it's popular,
ubiquitous and easy to use
-Google Transit helps people find out how to transfer between
different modes of transportation from different transit providers
(especially useful in the Los Angeles and Bay Areas, where three or
more major transit providers (Metrolink, MTA, OCTA, Burbank Bus, etc.
and BART, CalTrain, and MUNI, etc.) service a conglomerated area)
-You can contact Google Transit at labs...@google.com
-You can visit Google Transit athttp://www.google.com/transit
-You can read about Google Transit
athttp://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/happy-trails-with-google-trans...
-You can have your IT people see how to format your data for Google
Transit athttp://code.google.com/transit/spec/transit_feed_specification.htm
-If you have connections with people at other transit agencies, please
let them know about Google Transit!
(The idea is to hook and intrigue them and then give them all the information they need to get them started without having to research it all from scratch.)
Most transit agencies have a "Contact Us" page. For those of you who want to join me in urging Southern California providers to join Google Transit, you can contact Metrolink at pass...@scrra.net (this is the email address I received a reply from when I contacted Metrolink via their web form, and so I'm not 100% sure it accepts emails directly) and MTA at cust...@metro.net. I don't know what other transit agencies exist in the L.A. area (Burbank Bus and OCTA, but those are already Google Transit partners--I'm not sure how many cities have their own transit systems versus just relying on LACMTA and OCTA).
If you have any connections to Ventura County and want to work on
them, Ventura County officials can be reached from this
page:http://www.goventura.org/home/index.asp?page=36--I picked the ones
that seemed the most like they'd be in the position to work on this
project (the technology people and the transportation planning
people).
My next project is the Bay Area (as I use transit in that area when I visit), but I'm going to wait and see what the response is from the people I've already contacted.
I hope this helps people get in contact with their transportation officials and get more agencies listed on Google Transit!
On Apr 5, 2:42 pm, "Chris Luth" <chri...@gmail.com> wrote:
The best way to do it is to do what I did: contact your transit provider and ask them to partner with Google. (As far as I know, Google doesn't charge transit providers for partnering--the revenue probably comes from advertising, like almost all of Google's other products--they just need access to the transit provider's route and schedule data.)
Forward-thinking transit companies may jump at the chance; less-advanced companies might take a bit of prodding from many people. So the moral is: everyone write or call your transit provider (and/or those in cities you visit frequently and use transit in) and ask them to contact Google! (Transit providers can contact the Google Transit team at labs...@google.com.)
Chris
On 4/5/07, Victor <vict...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, how can I help to make Google transit available on Peru
Victor Pereyra