Transit agencies are increasingly using open-source software such as OneBusAway (http://onebusaway.org/), OpenTripPlanner (http://www.opentripplanner.org/), and TheTransitClock (https://thetransitclock.github.io/) to creating real-time information systems. This presentations discusses these projects and shows how they can all work together.

1. Open-source Transit Software
Real-time information using open data and open-source
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2. Open-source is awesome
 Allows multiple agencies to leverage the same resources
 Don’t start from scratch – jump start new projects
 Don’t reinvent the wheel – spend those resources elsewhere
 Reduces risk of vendor lock-in
 Any vendor can deploy and support an open-source solution
 If a vendor doesn’t perform, agency can switch vendors and keep
software
 Reduces long-term risk of innovation failure
 Someone else can also improve upon past efforts

3. At least 3 major transit open-source projects
OpenTripPlanner TheTransitClock
(formerly transiTime)
OneBusAway
onebusaway.org opentripplanner.org thetransitclock.org

4. A lot of users and deployments
 OneBusAway
 Deployed in 10 cities worldwide
 For iOS and Android alone (not including web, SMS, IVR, Alexa):
 Over 1 million unique users
 ~330k active users in the last 30 days
 OpenTripPlanner
 At least 13 production deployments worldwide
 TheTransitClock
 Based on transitime open-source project created by Mike Smith @ Swiftly
 New maintainer – Sean Crudden (Contractor for Irish Rail)

5. Each do different things
 TheTransitClock
 Focuses on generating arrival/departure predictions given raw vehicle data
 Can export predictions in GTFS-realtime and other formats
 OneBusAway
 Provides an API optimized for accessing real-time transit information
 Includes open-source native apps for iOS, Android, Amazon Alexa, Google
Glass
 Can consume GTFS-realtime and other real-time formats
 OpenTripPlanner
 Provides an API optimized for multimodal trip planning, including bikeshare
 Can consume GTFS-realtime, General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS)

6. Typical architecture
TheTransitClock
OneBusAwayRaw
vehicle
data GTFS-realtime
OpenTripPlanner
Trip planning API
Real-time
arrival API
Bikeshare API
Native apps
(e.g.,
OneBusAway
Android)

7. WMATA Bus (Washington, D.C.)
TheTransitClock
Real-time transit info without proprietary prediction algorithmsOneBusAway

8. HART (Tampa, FL)
OpenTripPlanner
OneBusAway
Real-time info, trip planning, and bikeshare

9. Thanks!
@sjbarbeau
linkedin.com/in/seanbarbeau
Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.
barbeau@usf.edu
813.974.7208

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