9 messages in com.googlegroups.googletransitRe: Excel KML and Access MDB| From | Sent On | Attachments |
|---|---|---|
| Bob Heitzman | 07 Jun 2007 16:50 | |
| Tom Brown | 08 Jun 2007 07:55 | |
| Bob Heitzman | 14 Jun 2007 08:02 | |
| Bob Heitzman | 14 Jun 2007 19:24 | |
| Chris Luth | 15 Jun 2007 02:37 | |
| N. Tedesco | 15 Jun 2007 06:53 | |
| Tom Brown | 15 Jun 2007 11:28 | |
| Joe Mann | 15 Jun 2007 16:51 | |
| JP | 21 Jun 2007 09:26 |
| Subject: | Re: Excel KML and Access MDB |
|---|---|
| From: | Joe Mann (Joe....@fresno.gov) |
| Date: | 06/15/2007 04:51:52 PM |
| List: | com.googlegroups.googletransit |
Hello Tom,
Thank you for the email and for all your hard work.
I work at Fresno Area Express (FAX) and we have placed test data and are
testing. Right now, I am getting our new route schedule ready to load. Also,
the EULA is in the decision makers hands. I am really looking forward to "going
live".
After I read the morning emails, I feel a few of the authors were NOT justified
with their comments. To me, Google is creating a wonderful service and it is our
responsibility to provide the data. I thank you and all the Google staff for
all their hard work and support.
Joe Mann
Tom Brown <tom....@gmail.com> 6/15/2007 11:28 am >>>
Agencies need software (created by "programmers") to organize their data. Hopefully all such software will export GTFS so the data relevant to riders can be read by Google Transit, timetable publisher, graph server etc.
Anything you can do to help agencies organize their data or export GTFS from existing databases is most welcome. It would be great if you could help agencies that use it create a GTFS!
Google Transit is not a database that agencies can use to organize their data. Most small agencies lack the technical resources to write their own database system and can not afford the existing commercial solutions. There is an opportunity for an someone to create an affordable database/GIS system accessible to "users" to help these agencies. That someone such as one of the existing companies that currently makes expensive custom solutions, a group of open source hackers or a single engineer working from home. Hopefully this product will include "export GTFS" similar to what Giro and Trapeze announced. (http://groups.google.com/group/googletransit/browse_thread/thread/ b5db34de8be8724). Google isn't the right company to take this opportunity. It is quite possible products unbeknown to me exist today.
I agree that tools that need a little visual basic knowledge would be
much less intimidating than anything with python but we wrote parts
of the feed validator and schedule viewer in python before thinking
about releasing them. The binaries at
http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/
help windows users. Agencies have found these very useful for error
checking.
BTW, you can load
http://googletransitdatafeed.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/python/examples/table.txt
in excel (read times going down)
also
http://googletransitdatafeed.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/python/ has
kmlwriter.py and kmlparser.py which are pretty basic at the moment.
Bob Heitzman wrote:
I am assume there are at least two groups here - "programmers" that are working on serve side tools that read/process the feed files, and "users", who build and maintain the feed files. "users" may very well be programmers, but would most likely be looked down on by the "programmers" as mere mortals.
If agencies need "programmers" to have their data published Google Transit won't get very far IMHO. Hence my question "why would anyone be writting code for Google Transit?" I just do not understand what part of Google Transit is under construction by the open source community. I'm hoping it doesn't make any difference to the "users" as long as they supply feed files that are acceptable.
RE: KML
More and more GIS tools can export to KML. If a user has access to such a tool, and they already have their transit routes and stops in GIS, KML may be an easy way to transfer the data to the stops and shape feed files that require lat/long. And/or an app developed using the Google Earth API may help thos esmall agencies that have to start from scratch to define thier route lines and stops.
RE: Access
Access is commonly used to maintain databases and perhaps would be useful in support of a database that is customized to Google Transit. Although Execl can probably work fine for small agencies.
RE: user VBA capabilities
It would be very hard to make an Excel app that those that can't get their cups to fit into the CD drive. I'm hoping to build some tools for someone with Excel power user skils. Understanding VBA would be helpful, most likely when they are trying to extract their transit data from wherever it is now. If they don't have VBA skills they can most likely brute force the data entry. Me, I'd rather right code than do data entry for a bunch of schedule data.
Today I was building a tool that would allow the user to just enter the departue time for a trip along with the interval the trip runs on and the code builds all the the rest of the stop_time records. Tomorrow I hope to build the other supporting records.
A difficulty I ran into today is that the public schedule data is often incomplete. For example a local bus route as about 20 stops but only 6 are listed on the public schedule. Hopefully a more complete schedule is available to transit planners.
I'm kind of getting the idea that a lot of agencies farm out their map and schdule tasks to firms that specialize in those tasks. I'm guessing the companies work with the agencies and get the raw data in a variety of formats, including paper, and then run it through their tools to build the maps/schedules. In the process they take ownership of the processed data and the agencies do not get the processed data back without paying big time. Parcel data has a similar problem. Google Transit may want to approach these companies to provide feed data - of course the company would want to bill someone, most likely the transit agencies would pick up the bill for a new output type.
On 6/14/07, Nicholas Albion <nalb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm talking "user" tools here.
"user" tools? you've lost me - how many/what kind of "users" speak KML and use Access?
why would anyone be writting code for Google Transit?
What _are_ you doing?
Reference the Reality Check topic. The folks that would have to generate and manage the data for small agencies are not going to be writing open source code in Java or Python, nor would they even look on such a page for help.
No? What language(s) do open source folks write in?
The tools I am working on are user oriented. Even with my tools in their current state an agency would need someone with a bit of VBA experience.
Are you talking "hey, how do you get the cup holder to come out of the computer" users, or "I've just posted the url of my latest mashup on my blog" users?