OC Transpo set to release bus-location data March 22

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Laura Mueller

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OC Transpo will release live bus GPS data in March.

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OC Transpo will release live bus GPS data in March.

EMC News - Following the outrage that ensued after OC Transpo management backtracked on a promise to release bus-location data openly to the public, the transit agency is set to keep its commitment and release the information by March 22.

Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney, a commissioner who is also chairman of the information technology subcommittee, said a productive Jan. 24 meeting of an OC Transpo IT working group led to the change of heart.

During a special transit commission meeting on Jan. 26, members unanimously approved a report directing strict timelines for when the bus-location data should be released.

"I think we have to be able to provide the open data," Tierney said. "That's a commitment that we made, and this (the report) is going to address that. By March 22, that commitment will be fulfilled."

Tierney said he was pleased with the subsequent action on the bus-location data issue, after becoming "extremely upset" that chairwoman Diane Deans and OC Transpo general manager Alain Mercier told the transit commission on Jan. 17 that the data should be kept private for use by OC Transpo with its mobile applications and displays in order to maximize the amount of revenue that could be made from the data.

At the last meeting, transit commissioners were told that "dynamic advertising," including the potential for exclusive OC Transpo use of bus-location data, could net the transit agency $1.1 million in new revenue over the next four years.

The report approved on Jan. 26 states: "(The) IT working group believes and recommends that the city should proceed with the release of real time GPS data as soon as prudent terms of use can be developed, given that there is currently no market taking advantage of such advertising opportunities and that the anticipated additional revenue is relatively small."

Mercier told transit commissioners on Jan. 17 that OC Transpo would be looking at how much money could be made from harnessing the exclusive use of bus-location data, and then let commissioners decide what's more important: potential advertising revenue from the only mobile app that can show real-time bus locations, or the city's commitment to transparency through its open data initiative. That debate was set to take place this summer.

But after the commission voted in favour of speeding up the public release of the information, Mercier said OC Transpo has been "very open to moving ahead."

While last year, the transit agency was focused on addressing the financial constraints in its fiscal framework, this year has brought a challenge of balancing the needs of OC Transpo and the expectations of customers.

"Customers' expectations are going fast and we're keeping up with the times," Mercier said. "We've been working together and we know where we want to go, and we'll be talking about that on March 22."

A strong argument was made by Tierney to look more closely at the model Winnipeg uses to release its bus-location data to the public for use in privately-developed applications that let riders know how far away their next bus is.

Alex Lougheed, spokesperson for the local advocacy group Open Data Ottawa, said the group is "super excited" about this next stage in the ongoing process of fighting for open data.

In the end, it was community pressure that led to this success, said Lougheed, a Centretown resident. That pressure went beyond the open data community and tech-minded developers because transit users are able to see the benefit and express that to councillors and commissioners.

"There is a lot of genuine demand for this stuff," Lougheed said, who handed out "certificates of awesome" to transit commission members to thank them for their support.

The city did release a bus-location data briefly during its Apps4Ottawa contest in 2010 and early 2011, and transit apps were very popular: "Where is My Bus?," an app developed by ByWard Market resident Jonathan Rudenberg, won the people's choice award. But some other bus apps didn't work and left OC Transpo to field calls about the bad information they were putting out to the public, transit commissioners were told on Jan. 17.

Rudenberg said he intends to look at the format OC Transpo plans to release the data in and rework his app to make it useable.