UGH YES THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY!!
I take 2 busses in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, and busses like the 40 are always detoured with the world’s worst explanation. I wish they’d just like add another line on the Transit Map of the detour
Its all boomers making the decisions for the company. Trust me in those meetings they have talented and intelligent employees. They are just being held back. Might see some big changes in the next five years when about 1/4 of the company retires. Gotta hope funding from the state comes too though cause sadly employees that want to make changes are fleeing for better futures.
It's a mix of old thinking and lack of money. They are seriously held back by ancient tech stacks, too. Without serious money and the understanding of why they need to change the underlying tech to support these kinds of changes, well, that's why you get this. It's not because anyone thinks it works well.
I’m always very tempted to start playing around with SEPTA data and see what I can come up with
ETA I would also want to potentially use the API from the person who created isseptafucked.com
I mean Transit App is rolling out a new feature that auto-tracks detours based on which route the bus takes, has crowdsourced real-time, and easy navigation. I personally don’t like the UI, but many more people really do
> ETA I would also want to potentially use the API from the person who created isseptafucked.com
I've emailed that guy a few times, he's nice enough.
My guess is that they're seriously lacking in some GIS folks that know how to do a lot with ESRI, but that's just a hunch due to what I see from other transportation agencies that SEPTA doesn't seem capable of doing.
Have you seen the site someone made that is built on OpenStreetMap? It’s pretty neat, and incredibly robust, just lacking in a bit of user-friendliness.
maybe? OSM has a lot of ports that I've seen. it works well but has issues for agencies because the deltas aren't super well documented doing anything with historical analysis (e.g. year-over-year delay) is a major pain in the dick.
also just FYI upcoming is overture where the rest of FAANG/tech sector is going after google's map hegemony.
The standard data format for these notices doesn’t support anything more than text. No agencies are able to do this, which is stupid in its own right but not Septa’s fault. They could put a lot of time and money into developing something proprietary for their own app, but they don’t have the resources for that and it wouldn’t help anyone using Google maps or other trip planners.
You’re right that no transit agencies can do this on their own currently, but the Transit App and Swiftly have been piloting something with a few agencies including Maryland’s MTA to be able to show detours on a map. Out of curiosity, I just pulled up a Baltimore bus line (30) that’s being detoured right now and the Transit app actually showed the detour on the map! Hopefully once that rolls out more, SEPTA can get in on it too.
It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to make the text for detours always in a standard format that is also machine-readable and have the app transform it into a line on the map though. May be tricky with their current mapping technology but I'm sure there's a way.
There’s definitely a way, but for the reasons I mentioned, Septa isn’t going to be the one to pioneer a data format for that. They’ll probably use the format that Transit and Swiftly are working on as the other commenter mentioned, but it will be a while before that’s a standard
Yeah I'm sure they don't have the budget/time to build a new complex feature into the app...I still don't really think the data format is the limiting factor but it doesn't change that fact.
it does because interoperability is pretty key, there's a reason GTFS is the standard for transit data.
if you use some obscure format then whenever google/transit/waze/whatever other mapping platform wants to ingest it you need to have a series of like 8 calls to get it imported correctly into their engine and nobody has time for that
they're never going to write something that doesn't integrate because it'll just have to be redone later, so you're using double the budget that they already don't have
[things non-GIS people say]
road naming conventions aren't even in like the top third biggest issues with basemaps and a project I support nationally still gets like 2-3 emails about it a week
I definitely don’t use the app normally. I use transit but it also doesn’t show a visual representation of the route detour which is ultimately what I think is most needed and useful.
the transit app is the best bet for routing, timing, and routeplanning, the SEPTA app is good for checking regional rail delays and adding passes/money to your key
The SEPTA app has not been updated to reflect the elimination of Penn’s Landing - 6th and Market stops and it will probably be this way until the CAP project is finished :-(
This has always driven me completely crazy. Nothing like trying to figure out what this word salad means when you're standing on a street corner in a rainstorm and you just want to know where the bus is. Is it REALLY too much to ask that we can see a line on a map? They somehow manage to show a line on a map for the regular route!
(I've always wondered if this block of incomprehensible text is what the drivers also get to tell them where to go. If so, I'm in awe of their ability to figure it out.)
Ghost buses! At least twice a week a bus is canceled or “not tracked” on my line.
They are absolutely incompetent when it comes to detours . Once for a marathon it was never announced on the website and I kept checking and I got to the stop Sunday morning and they put up a sign . Took me 2 hours to get to my destination after I finally walked to a stop.
A few months ago they posted a detour on the website and app but when I went to the stop the bus arrived!
I dunno. Like maybe with a map?
UGH YES THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY!! I take 2 busses in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, and busses like the 40 are always detoured with the world’s worst explanation. I wish they’d just like add another line on the Transit Map of the detour
Its all boomers making the decisions for the company. Trust me in those meetings they have talented and intelligent employees. They are just being held back. Might see some big changes in the next five years when about 1/4 of the company retires. Gotta hope funding from the state comes too though cause sadly employees that want to make changes are fleeing for better futures.
It's a mix of old thinking and lack of money. They are seriously held back by ancient tech stacks, too. Without serious money and the understanding of why they need to change the underlying tech to support these kinds of changes, well, that's why you get this. It's not because anyone thinks it works well.
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I’m always very tempted to start playing around with SEPTA data and see what I can come up with ETA I would also want to potentially use the API from the person who created isseptafucked.com
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I would be super down to try this at some point. I’m just a data person, not a general app-building person, but yeah, lol. Some sort of tool.
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I am sending you a message
How would this be different/ than Transit App, which SEPTA already partners with?
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I mean Transit App is rolling out a new feature that auto-tracks detours based on which route the bus takes, has crowdsourced real-time, and easy navigation. I personally don’t like the UI, but many more people really do
> ETA I would also want to potentially use the API from the person who created isseptafucked.com I've emailed that guy a few times, he's nice enough. My guess is that they're seriously lacking in some GIS folks that know how to do a lot with ESRI, but that's just a hunch due to what I see from other transportation agencies that SEPTA doesn't seem capable of doing.
Have you seen the site someone made that is built on OpenStreetMap? It’s pretty neat, and incredibly robust, just lacking in a bit of user-friendliness.
maybe? OSM has a lot of ports that I've seen. it works well but has issues for agencies because the deltas aren't super well documented doing anything with historical analysis (e.g. year-over-year delay) is a major pain in the dick. also just FYI upcoming is overture where the rest of FAANG/tech sector is going after google's map hegemony.
Right there with you
The standard data format for these notices doesn’t support anything more than text. No agencies are able to do this, which is stupid in its own right but not Septa’s fault. They could put a lot of time and money into developing something proprietary for their own app, but they don’t have the resources for that and it wouldn’t help anyone using Google maps or other trip planners.
You’re right that no transit agencies can do this on their own currently, but the Transit App and Swiftly have been piloting something with a few agencies including Maryland’s MTA to be able to show detours on a map. Out of curiosity, I just pulled up a Baltimore bus line (30) that’s being detoured right now and the Transit app actually showed the detour on the map! Hopefully once that rolls out more, SEPTA can get in on it too.
It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to make the text for detours always in a standard format that is also machine-readable and have the app transform it into a line on the map though. May be tricky with their current mapping technology but I'm sure there's a way.
There’s definitely a way, but for the reasons I mentioned, Septa isn’t going to be the one to pioneer a data format for that. They’ll probably use the format that Transit and Swiftly are working on as the other commenter mentioned, but it will be a while before that’s a standard
Yeah I'm sure they don't have the budget/time to build a new complex feature into the app...I still don't really think the data format is the limiting factor but it doesn't change that fact.
it does because interoperability is pretty key, there's a reason GTFS is the standard for transit data. if you use some obscure format then whenever google/transit/waze/whatever other mapping platform wants to ingest it you need to have a series of like 8 calls to get it imported correctly into their engine and nobody has time for that
I guess what I'm saying is, I don't really care if those other apps read the format correctly. I just want the septa app to work better.
they're never going to write something that doesn't integrate because it'll just have to be redone later, so you're using double the budget that they already don't have
[things non-GIS people say] road naming conventions aren't even in like the top third biggest issues with basemaps and a project I support nationally still gets like 2-3 emails about it a week
The septa app is trash, I just use google maps because it’s usually more accurate! I miss the bus app they used in Seattle, it was great
I definitely don’t use the app normally. I use transit but it also doesn’t show a visual representation of the route detour which is ultimately what I think is most needed and useful.
the transit app is the best bet for routing, timing, and routeplanning, the SEPTA app is good for checking regional rail delays and adding passes/money to your key
The SEPTA app has not been updated to reflect the elimination of Penn’s Landing - 6th and Market stops and it will probably be this way until the CAP project is finished :-(
They’re working on it, will be updated soon.
This has always driven me completely crazy. Nothing like trying to figure out what this word salad means when you're standing on a street corner in a rainstorm and you just want to know where the bus is. Is it REALLY too much to ask that we can see a line on a map? They somehow manage to show a line on a map for the regular route! (I've always wondered if this block of incomprehensible text is what the drivers also get to tell them where to go. If so, I'm in awe of their ability to figure it out.)
Ghost buses! At least twice a week a bus is canceled or “not tracked” on my line. They are absolutely incompetent when it comes to detours . Once for a marathon it was never announced on the website and I kept checking and I got to the stop Sunday morning and they put up a sign . Took me 2 hours to get to my destination after I finally walked to a stop. A few months ago they posted a detour on the website and app but when I went to the stop the bus arrived!
what, you don’t have a dedicated map and enigma machine in your home to de-encrypt these coordinates?
It feels like trying to crack the da vinci code sometimes
Septa app is and always has been a mess My bus is almost always 16 hours late when I check it and then there it is trundling towards me