The people who brought you parking spot locating via text-messaging in Park Slope, Brooklyn -- Roadify -- are expanding their services to include real-time bus transit information. Their first service, ParkingAroundMe (PAM), launched this past November. The way it works is when a commuter is leaving a parking spot they text the location to an online database. People circling the block looking for a spot receive a list of these available spots. (You can see the spots folks gave to others since November on the map above.)
The new service, BusesAroundMe (BAM) will launch in a couple of week, Dan Robinson, a member of the Roadify team, said in an email to McBrooklyn. They're starting with the B67 route, which seldom sticks to its published schedule. People using the service will text something like "getting on the bus at 7 st." Roadify has the official bus schedules in their system and members farther down the line will receive something like, "2 mins ago bus at 7 st. 10 mins behind schd."
Both the parking and the bus service are completely free and will always be free, says Robinson. Visit the Roadify web site to join.
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'PAM' pays people to go around and mark spots, until there is any real public interest this will not take off. However if this turns into holding spots for each other they are going to run into alot of trouble.
ReplyDeletePersonally if I'm getting on the bus the last thing that I am worried about is that out of their small user base would I really input bus times for someone who will probably not be waiting anywhere else in this small stretch of bus line. If I am waiting for the 9:06 bus and find out it is 10 minutes late who cares, I'll just get on the 9:13
As for the rider information, Lou, I beg to differ. I think that people want to know how far off the bus is. Especially in this cold weather. We want to know if we can go grab a cup of coffee before boarding the bus.
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