Nextbus drops MBTA?

[siderea]

(x-posted to boston and my journal)

Or vice versa?

Nextbus.com prediction pages for MBTA buses now say:

"NextBus is no longer supplying predictions for MBTA. Please go to https://www.mbta.com/mbta-endorsed-apps or https://www.mbta.com/customer-support for more information."

Does anybody know more about this? Like why it's happening? And does anybody know a non-app, desktop-accessible alternative?

Comments

[gingicat]

Google Maps is actually accurate regarding bus times these days.

[bikergeek]

I know GMaps used to be wildly optimistic when calculating travel times on the T, especially as regards buses. Does GMaps now include realtime bus info?

[gingicat]

Siderea specified web.

Google goes by published schedules. For real-time you need the app recommended by the MBTA.

[rmd]

NextBus lost their contract. I believe the new vendor is “swiftly”. https://medium.com/mbta-tech/better-bus-predictions-a-lot-better-64169f1edeee

[squirrelitude]

Should I take from this that the MBTA does not provide a public API that people can build on top of? :-/

[siderea]

They certainly used to, q.v. HowFuckedIsTheT.com.

[dmaze]

https://www.mbta.com/developers is reasonably accessible, if you're into that sort of thing and don't mind registering for an API key. The GTFS-Realtime feed is very standard, and says where the busses _are_, but doesn't include predictions (you could make your own). The T also has what you might call a "proprietary" API (that is, it's T-specific and not like GTFS where lots of agencies provide data in the same format) that includes a specific call to retrieve predictions.

[squirrelitude]

Ah, that's good to hear! I had misunderstood the relationship between NextBus and the MBTA, as I think some other folks had.

[siderea]

Cool! (It says GTFS-Realtime includes prediction data!)

[mindstalk]

I note that the T signs at Davis seem to rely on "there is a train at Alewife, surely it is 2 minutes away" rather than any actual schedule; you can stand there looking at "Braintree 2 minutes" for 10 minutes.

[jducoeur]

Yes, although Davis seems to be an outlier there. Far as I can tell, they're reasonably good at predicting trains *except* at turnaround points -- I assume that the "when to send out the next train from Alewife" algorithm has a manual component to it. (And it's notable that they've recently switched over to "Braintree stopped 1 stop away", which is more honest, if not any more useful.)

[josephineave]

I used to take buses from Lechmere and there was a real randomness to departures matching with the predictions. They couldn't really handle buses that would get taken out of service or ones that would be changed to a different route. And a lot of buses don't keep to the departure schedule -- instead just doing a turnaround as soon as they get into the station and get loaded.

[siderea]

Ooooh, thanks for that pointer, very informative.

I hadn't thought/realized that NextBus was the estimate data source - I thought they were like the apps an estimate data consumer. Swiftly doesn't seem to have a web app for any of their contracted municipalities, the way NextBus did. Do we know what the T is doing about that?

[elusiveat]

Thanks for sharing the background, RMD.

[davisdenizen]

I find Track the T very accurate and easy to use. On my phone, I just use it in a browser. http://www.trackthet.com/

[siderea]

Thanks for the pointer.

[sandrylene]

Thanks for prompting this discussion - I was similarly dismayed. I'm hoping the previously mentioned trackthet.com turns out to be a reasonable replacement, though at the moment it seems to not have any bus predictions at all. (Or at least I'm 0/7 on routes I care about having any predictions at all, where 4 of those are rapid transit routes that absolutely should have buses coming, so I'm assuming it's not currently getting any data.)

Oh, actually, since it was noted this is cross posted to a personal journal, and I see someone has an answer there which appears to work - http://www.mbtainfo.com/ provides a service that seems to be a pretty good 1 to 1 replacement for what I'd been using NextBus for.

Quirkily enough, I think it's actually a site made by a coworker. Why I didn't just default to trying that first, I surely don't know.

[siderea]

I just discovered the big draw-back about mbtainfo.com: at stops with multiple buses, it doesn't collate arrival times in order. Instead it lists each bus route separately, e.g.

Davis Square

96
17 min
93 min
124 min

87
13 min
30 min
52 min

94
4 min
44 min
96 min

etc.

So when you use it for a major bus hub you have to be careful you're looking at the right bus route, and if you have multiple buses you could take to get to your destination (e.g. either 94 or 96 to get to Medford Sq) you have to check each separately.

I much prefer the nextbus model of "here's the data for the bus you asked for at this location, and here's the collated data for every other bus that will stop at this location."

[sandrylene]

I agree. I'd say this is one of a few UI choices I preferred in NextBus. I think that generally had lower mental overhead for processing what was going on. But push comes to shove the info's there, so it's workable.

I'll definitely take what I can get here, given that most other options are obnoxious app implementations that think they need to help me by telling me what's near my location when that's not remotely how I use the service.

[jeffbyrnes]

The officially-sponsored app is Transit, which works great, but does not have a web app AFAIK.

My personal favorite is CityMapper, which has a web app and a delightful native mobile app.