iPhone Ap for CTA (Chicago, Union: 2013, live, versus)

[danfed]

I'm looking to find an iPhone ap that provides real time CTA bus schedules.

I'm considering a move to the City and would be taking Metra on a reverse commute out of Union Station.

I know the "L" schedule/stops well enough to get around but want to know what my CTA bus to "L" or Union Station options are. Preferably something where the GPS in the phone can find you and direct you to the nearest stop and be able to enter end destiations such as "L" stops and Union Station.

I'm thinking that this will allow me to expand my sphere of area options if I know there's a potentially convenient bus to "L" or Metra option.

I'm totally at a loss as to the bus schedules, stops, etc. within the City so something that's intuitive is pretty paramount.

Thanks in advance for any advice or direction you can provide.

Dan

[marothisu]

I made an app that does this, kind of, but it's only for Android so far.


If you have Google Maps, then first of all that will do a good job of telling you which stop you need to go to based on where you are. CTA stuff is built into Google Maps.

If you are just looking for when the next train/bus is coming then here are some options:
Deprecated Browser Error

[Thepreacherswife]

You really don't want the schedules themselves because once the first bus or train of rush hour starts, the schedules more or less go to hell. You want the predictive arrival data for next bus and train arrivals, which is pushed out by the CTA through their train tracker and bus tracker APIs. The bus arrivals are based on GPS; the train arrivals are based on the block occupied by a given train, combined with recent travel times between adjacent stations.

For iPhone, I thought Buster was the best when I had an iPhone. It uses the phone's GPS to tell you the nearest bus stops to your location and can track multiple favorite routes.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Thepreacherswife

You really don't want the schedules themselves because once the first bus or train of rush hour starts, the schedules more or less go to hell. You want the predictive arrival data for next bus and train arrivals, which is pushed out by the CTA through their train tracker and bus tracker APIs. The bus arrivals are based on GPS; the train arrivals are based on the block occupied by a given train, combined with recent travel times between adjacent stations.

For iPhone, I thought Buster was the best when I had an iPhone. It uses the phone's GPS to tell you the nearest bus stops to your location and can track multiple favorite routes.

Train schedules are almost always on time during rush hour, within a few minutes, and buses are not that late either. Trains don't even matter in rush hour because for some lines, they come every few minutes anyway. Yes, you want arrival data apps, which is pretty much all of them.

[Drover]

CTA Transit App Center

"Buses are not that late" may apply to people who live near a route headway and are traveling away from it. For everyone else, the bus "schedules" are a joke and are only useful for determining approximately how often buses are running on a given route during a given time of day. The GPS-based arrival estimates are considerably more useful for estimating when one will actually arrive at a given stop.

[marothisu]

Buses are obviously way more apt to be late, but for some routes especially if you're in the Loop, just like the trains the buses come pretty often. Due to traffic though it could be weird. Trains though I rarely ever find to be late versus their schedules and frankly it's hard for them to be late with some routes' schedules. Only when weird **** happens are they late.

[Lucky Clover]

At some point Rahm is going to have to take some initiative towards technology in this city. I know it's not a huge thing right now, but similar to what Bloomberg is doing in NYC is what Rahm needs to do here. Adding transit technology such as official apps is something that's becoming a standard now because of how fast technology is moving.

[JBVirtuoso]

I think the bus and train schedules are helpful for determining when the first and last runs are each day. This information seems to be kept secret except for the PDF schedules, so I actually save a few of those to my phone so I can pull them up regardless of whether my phone's internet is working. Being stranded at 1 am after the last bus stops running is no fun.

For real-time bus arrival times and whatnot, there are already several apps that do that.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by tawfiqmp

At some point Rahm is going to have to take some initiative towards technology in this city. I know it's not a huge thing right now, but similar to what Bloomberg is doing in NYC is what Rahm needs to do here. Adding transit technology such as official apps is something that's becoming a standard now because of how fast technology is moving.

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Your statement proves you are not keeping up on ANYTHING dealing with this. You have got to be kidding me.

Chicago is one of the leaders in the US in the open data movement with NYC, by far which started on Rahm's dime. There are tons of hackathons and app contests that the city hosts and doles out prizes for. He has helped the 1871 startup community (and startup community in general) flourish and greatly grow. Not only that but he's also worked at attracting the U of Illinois to open up a computing lab in the city (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...tech-institute), and then really pushing ultra high speed broadband for many many areas (City of Chicago :: Error Page) and not to mention getting Google to move its mobility department to the merchandise mart.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/chi...overnment.html

Interviews with Chicago journalists and open government advocates, along with Tolva and Goldstein themselves, led me to a clear conclusion: there’s something new going on in the Windy City that’s worth sharing with the rest of the country and world.

I write apps with open data and I have to deal with this stuff everyday from multiple cities around the world and Chicago is easily one of the top 3 leaders in the US at this and one of the top in the world. Here you go:

https://data.cityofchicago.org/

[steeltreehat]

Originally Posted by danfed

I'm looking to find an iPhone ap that provides real time CTA bus schedules.

I'm considering a move to the City and would be taking Metra on a reverse commute out of Union Station.

I know the "L" schedule/stops well enough to get around but want to know what my CTA bus to "L" or Union Station options are. Preferably something where the GPS in the phone can find you and direct you to the nearest stop and be able to enter end destiations such as "L" stops and Union Station.

I'm thinking that this will allow me to expand my sphere of area options if I know there's a potentially convenient bus to "L" or Metra option.

I'm totally at a loss as to the bus schedules, stops, etc. within the City so something that's intuitive is pretty paramount.

Thanks in advance for any advice or direction you can provide.

Dan

You don't need an I-phone application to figure out how to ride the bus.