The terminal has written an article about the state of the BJCTA and my bus projects:
http://bhamterminal.com/blog/2013/06/20/bjcta-busy-spring-transit/
Author: line72
New version of Android Trip Planner App
I have released a new version of the BJCTA Trip Planner for Android phones. This includes a few small fixes to the geocoding and starts the app centered on BJCTA’s central station, instead of some random location in Nebraska. As always, get it for free from below or in the Google Play store.
MAX Bus Route 40 Available on Trip Planner
BJCTA MAX Bus Route 40, Fairmont, has been completed and is available on the trip planner. The BJCTA Trip Planner Android App will automatically pull in the new route and so will the online trip planner. The 3rd party apps like HopStop will take a while before they update. Â You can find the trip planner at:
BJCTA Routes Available on 3rd Party Apps
As I have been working on cataloging the BJCTA bus stops and generating route data, I have been posting it online at the gtfs-data-exchange for anyone to use. While major companies like Google won’t pick up on this data until it is certified by the agency, smaller 3rd party applications are.
Over the weekend, HopStop updated their app and included my transit data for the BJCTA buses. HopStop has free apps on Android, iPhone, and Windows phone devices. While I have released my own trip planner for android devices (BJCTA Trip Planner), I don’t yet have one for iPhones or Windows phones, so I’m glad to see 3rd party apps incorporating my data!
HopStop Website | HopStop for Android | HopStop for iPhone | HopStop for Windows Phone
If anyone knows of any other 3rd party apps that have picked up my GTFS data, please comment!
BJCTA (Max) Bus Trip Planner for Android
I have created a Trip Planner app for Android phones. This was based on an open source OTP project that I was able to modify and customized to run against my trip planner. Â It costs nothing and has no ads. Please give it a try an let me know if you like it! It is available in the Google Play store under the name BJCTA Trip Planner.
You can learn more about it from the link below.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.line72.bjcta.opentripplanner.android
You can also grab the source code and submit patches from my github site:
MAX Bus Route 45 Available on Trip Planner
BJCTA MAX Bus Route 45, South Bessemer, has been completed and is available on the trip planner. This is one of the most heavily used bus routes in Birmingham and I am excited to have finally cataloged it! Â You can find the trip planner at:
Bus Routes 25 and 28 Online
Bus routes 25 (Center Point) and 28 (East Lake) have been completed and are available on my trip planner:
New bikes for the Bike Share
Thanks to Regions Bank for donating two new bicycles for the Bike Share at my office, the Innovation Depot. We now have six bikes available for free to anyone that works at the Innovation Depot to use.
The Innovation Depot is a technology incubator for start up technology companies. My company, VIPAAR, is one of those.  Currently, there are over 80 companies at the Innovation Depot. I started the bike share last fall because the Innovation Depot is on the west side of downtown, just slightly out of range of a comfortable walk, but easily within biking distance to all the restaurants and shops.  Since then, I have seen a steady progression of use, and am expecting it to gain popularity even more as Spring rolls around.
Over 1,000 BJCTA Bus Stops Cataloged
Using my website (http://bjcta.line72.net) to catalog bus stops, we have successfully cataloged over 1,000 stops! I estimate there are somewhere between 2,000 – 3,000 stops in Birmingham. We are making great progress and have already been able to finish about 1/3 of the routes which can be seen on my trip planning website (http://tripplanner.line72.net).
Birmingham Business Journal
My company, VIPAAR, made the cover of the Birmingham Business Journal. That is all.
