
Pigeon – Crowdsourced transit app for New Yorkers - jonbaer
https://pigeon.area120.com/
======
nicholasjbs
I saw a subway ad for this a few weeks ago and immediately downloaded it.
During setup, it asked for my home and work addresses so it could save my
commute.

I trusted the app when it said, “We won’t share this info with anyone.”

Here’s a screenshot:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/nicholasbs/status/113532302185253...](https://mobile.twitter.com/nicholasbs/status/1135323021852532737)

After setting it up I wondered how a free app with no ads or in-app purchases
and which didn’t share your data could possibly make money, so I googled it.

I discovered that Pigeon is made by Google. I went back to the App Store
listing to see how I could have possibly missed this and found there is _no_
mention of Google anywhere in the App Store or the app itself unless you click
through to the Privacy Policy.

There are, however, plenty of reviews from people confused why an app like
this would only support sign in with Google.

~~~
Terretta
Not only that, but the site’s FAQs spin to sound like an authentic NYC
startup. See the question and answer about why iOS and not Android for now.

~~~
Terretta
EDIT/UPDATE:

FAQ Questions (now?) mention Google, but imply it’s a local team in “Google’s
workshop”:

 _Q. How started?_

 _A. After years of living in New York City and commuting on the subway, the
Pigeon team knows first-hand that public transit can be frustratingly
unpredictable. So when we started this project, we decided to create a product
that lets subway riders help each other avoid delays, crowds, and incidents
that make can make commuting so stressful._

 _Q.Who created this?_

 _A. Pigeon is lovingly designed and built by a small team based in New York
as a part of Area 120 - Google 's workshop for experimental products. For the
Pigeon team, being a part of Area 120 means we have the opportunity to create
a new, experimental product that we can continuously test and improve to make
sure it’s something that our users love. For our users, it means you get a
chance to experience our app in its early stages and help shape the product as
it grows._

 _Q. Only for New York?_

 _A. Pigeon’s dream is to make it easier to get around all cities. But, since
Pigeon is new and the team still has a lot to learn, we decided to start in
our own backyard of NYC: home to the largest subway system in the US. We think
starting here will help us figure out what works and what doesn’t as we move
toward this goal._

 _Q. Android?_

 _A. We’re currently focused on learning and testing with iOS users in NYC,
but we hope to bring Pigeon to Android soon. Please sign up for our Android
waitlist to be notified when it becomes available._

The Transit Heroes FAQ may be clearer:

 _Q. What would I get?_

 _A. An opportunity to meet up with the Pigeon team and other Transit Heroes
at the Google NYC campus._

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angott
This looks a lot like Transit (transitapp.com), which also has a similar
crowdsourcing feature. And I believe other apps like Citymapper and Moovit
also rely on users’ reports. Does this app have anything new in particular?

~~~
joeatyl
Area 120 is Google's in-house incubator. This seems like a veiled attempt to
swallow competitor functionality into Google Maps...

~~~
bobthepanda
I never quite understood this approach, since making applications more bloated
with everything under the sun is a great way to encourage lightweight
competitors to enter the space. See: word processors, Adobe Creative Suite,
etc

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joecool1029
Ah yes, not to be confused with the other purple themed app that sounds the
same: [https://pidgin.im](https://pidgin.im)

~~~
booleandilemma
It’s alright, most people won’t confuse the two because they’ve never heard of
Pidgin. All their friends are on facebookwhatsappinstagram.

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esposito
Based on their "crazy guy in first car" example, I expect there'll be more
than the occasional example of racism, ableism, etc.

~~~
grepthisab
Not sure what to do about that, but you're absolutely right. I see this a lot
on NextDoor, "suspicious people" posts when really it's just some person of
color who lives in the neighborhood or is walking their dog or something.

~~~
Sebguer
The sole purpose of Nextdoor is facilitating moral panic.

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crazygringo
As a New Yorker...

...I don't understand the value crowdsourcing provides, for transit.

Official real-time subway data is already provided by the MTA in all sorts of
forms (apps, API's, etc.). I don't know what there is to crowdsource -- you
can tell just by analyzing the data directly whether trains are stuck or not,
and for how long. And if you're stuck in a train car, it's very rare you have
any knowledge of how long the delay is going to be anyways -- conductor
announcements are almost always just "we hope to be moving soon". Same if
you're on the platform -- just a generic "trains are running delayed". And for
big delays (a train being shut down between stations for half an hour, etc.)
the MTA posts real-time notices explaining. So what's to crowdsource?

(Not to mention that if your train is stuck between stations and you _wanted_
to tell the app why, tough luck -- there's no cell or Wifi service between
stations anyways when you're underground, so you can't.)

There's always room to improve on transit apps, and crowdsourcing is hugely
valuable for car traffic, but crowdsourcing+transit makes no sense to me, at
least in NYC.

~~~
beisner
The coverage and accuracy of the information provided by the MTA APIs is poor,
in my experience. Additionally it doesn’t take into account crowding or any of
the other quality-of-trip components (i.e. closed elevators, altered service,
etc.).

~~~
crazygringo
What specifically is poor?

I've never used the API's -- only official MTA apps which presumably draw on
the same data source -- but it covers all trains, and the train times have
always seemed entirely accurate to me, if interpreted as "this is the minimum
time the next train could take to get to you, from its current distance".

The apps certainly do take account of altered service (same as Google Maps
does). Elevator closings are reported too, no crowdsourcing needed [1]. These
are all official, non-crowdsourced sources.

Crowding is really the only interesting thing in my opinion -- but although I
don't know of any apps that do it, it seems relatively easy to deduce from
train history and known average hourly station usage per day, which is
predictable enough to give decent results. But I'm not sure how often this
provides value though -- how often is a station/train so crowded that you'll
choose a viable alternate means of transportation in advance? Not often, in my
experience, which is probably why apps don't offer it.

[1]
[https://advisory.mtanyct.info/EEoutage/EEOutageReport.aspx?S...](https://advisory.mtanyct.info/EEoutage/EEOutageReport.aspx?StationID=All)

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nebrsjdbe
I saw a bunch of avatars over the map and was worried it was sharing my
location with other users. Got a google wave-esque chill. Couldn’t find
anything in settings to disable. Uninstalled.

