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ChineseClean and Easy HTML Schedules, A Must For Transit
Trainjotting, a blog about commuting to and from Manhattan, posted a link to a website called StationStops that, among other things, provides HTML formatted schedules for the Metro-North Railroad. What does this have to do with Los Angeles transit? If you recall, one of my biggest gripes about the Metro website is that schedules (an nearly everything else) are provided only in the PDF format. For those who aren’t aware, PDF files require an external program for viewing and are made specifically for print, not the web. Because of this they are an obtrusive, annoying, and unwieldy way to share important information on the internet. Unfortunately, most transit agencies don’t seem to know squat about basic web usability guidelines, and thus PDF schedules are something of an industry standard. Apparently, the New York MTA adheres to this silly standard, and StationStops decided to take matters into their own hands and formated schedules for the Metro-North Railroad in easy to read/print/copy/paste HTML. The results speak for themselves. I invite you to compare the StationStops HTML schedule for the New Haven Line with the NYC MTA’s PDF schedule of the same line. Which one is easier to read?
Here at home, Metrolink smartly offers HTML schedules in addition to the traditional PDF ones, but they could learn a thing or two from StationStops clean and simple tables. Instead of trying to emulate the PDF tables, which must contend with the non interactive limitations of print, they should be customized for ease of use and interactivity on the web.
Metro, and all transit agencies, need to realize that PDF is reserved for high quality print applications, not web based tables. HTML was specifically created to present tabular information on the web, so it’s insane to present schedules in any other way. Schedules are some of the most important information a transit rider needs and thus should be presented in a way that’s easy to access, read, and print.
Links about PDF:
- PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption
- PDF’s are evil, lazy, slothful and sinful
- Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility
- When to use PDF
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Hahahaa. I was going to do this, start writing an app that would go in and grab these PDFs and rip out the scheduling and provide it via HTML. It is however, very problematic.
The real nail in the coffin to my efforts was the fact that TriMet – Portland’s Transit Authority actually prints them in HTML on their site along with fairly decent transit tracker times fed in real time. Amazingly, they’re one of the better web presence sites for a transit authority.
Now if the others would catch on I’ll never have to think about the prospect of writing a PDF scraper again!
Can I get an A to the Men? AMEN!
What the f**k is up with .pdf files on government sites?
I mean, we all know what is up with it: they don’t want us to actually see what they’ve created and published. It isn’t that hard to turn a page full of typing into a nice html web-site – but that would be searchable, and scriptable, and well … useful.
The issue goes beyond distaste for .pdf schedules – Americans with Disabilites Act Section 508 (compliance for accessibility to digital docs) has specific rules for tables. See http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/standards.htm and http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.htm. The holdover-from-the-railroad-era formatted transit schedule paper tables that Metro and other transit agencies use need to go for numerous reasons, including legally required accessibility by users of screen reader software (e.g. JAWS).
I think pdfs have their place. While I agree html timetables are handy in a pinch, I think pdfs are great when you need to print a copy to take with you. Otherwise why wouldn’t you just use the trip planner or NexTrip? Another HUGE advantage of pdfs is that you can make pdf transit maps that can be zoomed in without degradation. You’d need a massive jpeg to do the same thing.
A print option, whether a PDF or an HTML document formated for printing, should always be offered, that’s a given. The trip planner is fine for some things, but sometimes you know the route you want to take and just want to know the schedule. If I want to take the Red Line from 7th Metro to Hollywood Highland, I don’t want to have to go through the 4-step trip planner process each time… I just want to be able to click and see a fast loading, clean, readable, HTML schedule so I can get the times and then get outta here.
Maps are a viable use of PDF, but as I said in another thread, web technologies have obviously revolutionized mapping. Google Maps and the like offer huge potential for transit maps that can be zoomed in and out of without degradation and much faster and easier, with the added potential of interactivity, that PDF’s simply can’t hope to match.
I think it’s not so much an issue of getting rid of PDFs (since they have to make them anyway to print the paper schedules), but just offering a better, and more sensible digital alternative. Why limit everything to PDFs?
The options barely begin with simple HTML tables. With google maps technology and AJAX and all the other web 2.0 buzzword goodies available now, they could have an incredible set of options. Sure, metro.net has the the weird but strangely compelling flash tour of the rail system and its stations, but it’s really limited in what it can show you.
Right now, I’ve got a PDF on my computer from metro.net called “System_Map.pdf” that is just that, a big huge picture of pretty much every rail and bus line in the metro system. It’s very useful … and incredibly slow and unwieldy. Simple HTML tables to present schedule information is obvious, but what would be really fantastic would be a serious, intelligent interactive system map. The trip planner is hugely inconsistent and often delivers really bad and stupid results (not to mention it’s own “map” on the left side is completely worthless). There’s something inherently simple and pleasing about looking at a map and saying “I’m here, how do I get to there?”
Some people have tried to add metro rail lines and things to google maps using the My Maps feature, but it’s a half-assed stapled on solution. If Metro spent money hiring someone to either use the google API or some other API, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that they could make the trip planner to end all trip planners.
You hit the nail on the head Simon.
But please don’t remove the PDFs. Instead of collecting paper schedules every service change (for my own service analysis purposes, as well as for odd trips I might decide to take), I’ve started collecting PDFs of schedules online and not taking home the backpack full of 100+ schedules any more. I use a bulk downloader and set it up, and have an updated version on my laptop computer. PDF is supposed to be a replacement for paper, but I think what you are really looking for is a web-oriented solution, and for that a “quick schedule” like Tri-Met has would be great. What I don’t want to see is the nonsense similar to the Bay Area’s 511 web page, which is horribly clunky and makes PDF look outstanding.
Certainly there’s no reason to get rid of all PDFs. They just shouldn’t be the standard. They should be there as an option for people who want to download and/or print a high quality version of the schedule. And since they are the same schedules that Metro prints, it’s no big deal to put them on the web since they are already made. Of course, I think this is the reason that there are ONLY PDF’s right now… it’s the easiest laziest cheapest solution.
Please god no. That page is as Web ‘95 as it gets.
While we’re at it, how about a system that allows you text or call a certain number, punch in a code specific to a certain bus stop on a certain route, and receive a message–whether in English, Spanish, Korean, and maybe a couple other languages–that tells you the current location of the nearest bus on that route and its ETA?
The technology’s out there and it’s not that expensive. Probably about 90% of LACMTA riders have mobile phones (penetration is nearly universal among even the low-income transit-dependent demographic, thanks to prepaid phones), and the choice of either text messaging or a voice call would offer maximum flexibility.
Metro’s Stops and Zones department has been working on this for the past several months. In fact, they are also looking into technology that won’t even require you to call a number first.
Kym, how many stops are actually gonna get this? If Metro can’t even put up a decent shelter at stops serviced by busy limited-stop lines, I have serious reservations about their ability to get LED signs there–and have we mentioned vandalism?
Doesn’t the NexTrip (socaltransport.org/NexTrip.php) system do what you want for most of the schedule issues? If you just want the schedule of a particular route between two stops, you just choose the system, Line, Beginning Stop, and End Stop, and it tells you when the next trip is supposed to start and all scheduled times between those two points. It’s not perfect (and slow when I do it on my PDA due to it’s size), but it seems to work pretty well in general.
NexTrip is fine except it’s not clean and easy or particularly accessible. It’s hidden on the top corner of the advanced trip planner, is housed in a pop-up window, uses drop-down lists which are stupid for something with so many choices (the bus stops), and then displays the schedule in some sort of mini font that’s hard for a 27 year old with good eye sight to read. StationStops handles HTML schedules perfectly. It really doesn’t need to be that complex.
CalTrain has a pretty basic HTML schedule:
http://caltrain.com/timetable.html
Other Bay Area agencies mostly offer you a choice of PDF or barebones ASCII.
The ASCII versions are usually kind of crummy. I think they just threw them in to satisfy ADA requirements.
The MTC has a transit trip planner at
http://transit.511.org/tripplanner/index.aspx
I don’t much like it. Google’s, at http://www.google.com/transit is way better, for the systems it covers.
What we really need is to get all transit agencies to expose their schedules as XML feeds, and let anyone who wants to make a custom viewer or trip planner (this is what the Google Transit folks have been pushing for).
i’m with p. mcferrin. that would be the end all of awesomeness. text/call/online update and know where a bus actually is, not where the timetable wishes it was.
Thanks for article and all the positive comments – I knew there was a mass of flustered commuters like me who wanted simple HTML schedules rather then PDF’s. I have even more usable formats in the works.
I dont know about LA, but at my Metro-North station, a massive, tiny text PDF under glass of the entire network is the only available info at the station.
I would be happy to start working on LA schedules next!
I am a former Northern Californian and would be glad to help out my left coast commuting brethren.
I remember when the L.A. MTA started offering the bus schedules on-line. (I believe it were 1996 or so.) I would attempt to view the damned things on my machine (a Mac G3 biege tower) as well as on the PCs in various libraries. Too often, the document would fail to load and offer instead an error message, or be a partial document. When they would load properly, it took time for the exploded view (much like viewing the entire system map know, even on a souped-up, graphics-ready iBook); as for printing, then, like now, there is a significant waste of paper.
Why Metro cannot create their itineraries in Excel so as to expediently export the information into both print- and Web-ready documents remains a mystery. Perhaps instead of Miss Traffic, they should have a contest for Miss Spreadsheet.
Pete, I do not know how many stops will be outfitted. As I said, right now it is a pilot program. (And I don’t know where you got the impression this was going to be LED signs. I said no such thing.)
And PLEASE do not fall into the trap of misconception that Metro is somehow responsible for shelters. As I have said in other threads, Metro does not own the shelters and benches at stops. All they own is the sign with the line information. Shelters and benches are the responsibility of whatever city the stop happens to be in. I will not for one second accept any argument that is based on a statement such as yours:
Please, have the facts before you condemn. Brash statements such as the above are worthy only of the BRU.
whoever is or isnt responsible doesnt change the fact that bus stops are a mess and someone needs to fix them.
i really dont think a blog comment on the internet that mistakes which faceless govt bureaucracy dropped the ball on busstops is going to cause any major problems
sayin
Better bus stops will come when citizens demand them as they demand potholes be filled on the roads. As long as buses are seen as the modality of transportation welfare for the poor, bus stops will be low quality. There was a definite improvement of the bus stops in WeHo along Santa Monica Blvd. a couple of years ago.
Thanks Kymberleigh, for pointing out who is responsible for the shelters and benches. Most people don’t know. If bus riders knew who and what is responsible for them, they’d direct their frustration in the right direction.
I agree with Matt, as an end user I don’t give a rats ass who or where or why the bus stops exists. If Metro bus stops aren’t part of Metro’s jurisdiction they damn well should be, or should at least have oversight of whoever is. A transit system needs to be just that, a system. A jumbled up jigsaw puzzle with pieces that don’t fit doesn’t make very nice picture.
Of course, the problem is that end users (like me) are used to the real world, and transit insiders like you (Kymberleigh) know that rationality and logic don’t work in the wild world of public transportation.
To avoid further whining by Kymberleigh (Worthy only of the BRU? C’mon), here is a link to each and every staff member in all of the cities with bus stops (and the County) who is in charge of the bus stops within each jurisdiction: http://boardarchives.metro.net/Items/2006/05_May/20060517OPItem19.pdf
Pick up the phone and give them a piece of your mind (most likely through a voice mail message) if there is a problem. If that doesn’t work, and if you are a resident or employee in the city, call the City Council and complain there.
lol calwatch I love that your reply was in PDF format.
lol. that was subtle.
oh yah, and StatioStops, thanks for your offer to do HTML schedules for LA. We’ll see, if Metro doesn’t change their ways soon, I might have to take you up on the offer and work on a StationStopsLA.
[...] Why would train commuters in Los Angeles be so interested in StationStops’ Metro-North Line Train Schedules? [...]