More OC Transpo real-time open data news

UPDATE 2012-02-20: OC Transpo is now required by Transit Commission to release GPS open data by March 22, 2012 ENDUPDATE

Some great ongoing coverage of the reluctance of Ottawa's transit agency, OC Transpo, to release real-time bus position information despite city policy, strong demands from Councillors, and insistence from citizens.

Developers

"I think in general OC Transpo is going to underestimate the capacity of the developer community to work together and solve problems," said Jonathan Rudenberg, who wrote a bus-location app using OC Transpo data that won a "people's choice" award in the city's application contest last year.

Ottawa Citizen - Criticism of route apps disputed - by David Reevely (@davidreevely) - January 20, 2012

You can find Jonathan on Twitter @titanous and information about his app Where is my bus? is available on the Apps4Ottawa contest site.

Developer John Gill (@swfiua) is so frustrated that he now wants to develop an app that uses crowdsourced position data from GPS-enabled smartphones, without using OC Transpo data at all.

Councillors

OC Transpo should open its bus-location data to outside programmers the same day it launches its own application to tell riders when their buses are due, says Councillor Stephen Blais, and he intends to present a motion to the city’s transit commission at its next meeting ... to force the company to do it.

Ottawa Citizen - Councillor determined to have OC Transpo bus-location data opened to outside programmers - by David Reevely - January 23, 2012

Councillor Blais tweets @StephenBlais and his political page on Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/StephenBlaisOrleans

Blog coverage

• http://www.blackberrycool.com/2012/01/19/encourage-your-city-councillors-and-government-to-make-data-open/
• http://kevino.ca/content/heres-how-easy-oc-transpos-open-data-should-be
• http://trashysworld.ca/2012/01/21/oc-transpo-greediness/

History

We've been fighting this fight for over a year.  Here's David Reevely reporting February 14, 2011: The open-data battle continues with OC Transpo.

Previously
January 19, 2012  In the news: Fight for Ottawa realtime transit open data
January 18, 2012  OC Transpo would rather have ads than open data