Wall Street Journal reporter Geoffrey Fowler recently wrote a story regarding the San Franciso Municipal Transportation Agency’s (MUNI) use of our NextBus real-time passenger information service (RTPIS). 

Transit Riders Hail the New Killer App by Geoffrey Fowler
Wall Street Journal Online – April 22, 2010
Link to Article

It’s a good summary of the system and explains the advantages provided to transit users, as well as some of the challenges faced by transit agencies as they strive to improve service with innovative GPS technology.

The article also includes an online poll, so if you’ve used NextBus in San Francisco you might want to cast your vote, and of course you can leave online comments.

Some creative use of NextBus GPS data to help visualize transit patterns and volumes in the San Francisco area. Market St. is on the upper right, and you can see buses coming across the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island in the far upper right. In the first video, each white dot/cube is a bus or train.

Thanks Jeevan. This is very cool.

San Francisco Public Transit Data Visualization from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.

San Francisco Public Transit Visualization from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.