
Fixing Google Map Transit Feed Mistakes in Taiwan - danso
https://taipeiurbanism.com/fixing-google-map-transit-feed-gtfs-mistakes-in-taiwan/
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londons_explore
Somethings up with transit data feeds in general...

Creating a transit data feed typically requires local knowledge, technical
knowledge of data feed formats, and access to make changes to the data feed.

Actual transit providers typically lack the technical knowledge, especially
for making day-to-day service updates. Transit enthusiasts lack the access to
make changes to the feed. Google and mapping companies lack the local
knowledge.

End result: Probably half the worlds population's local bus/train isn't
accurate/present on Google/Apple/OSM maps.

How can this be solved? Perhaps some kind of feed-wiki so the three interested
parties can do human collaboration?

~~~
cbhl
The Transit app crowd-sources this from users who are using the "Go" feature
in select markets.

There's also the Tripshot model -- an enterprise product where drivers install
an app on a cell phone to track ridership, and it also sends the gps
coordinates along.

That said, the other arcane part of transit directions is that if you update
or break your feed, you have to wait hours or days before the result shows up
on Google. (Sigh, batch processing...)

~~~
bobthepanda
A major issue with relying on drivers is that if the real-time position of a
driver is known, you can see both what they're doing and what they're _not_
doing. Which is bad if you want to get away with, say, taking longer breaks
than you're supposed to.

Anecdotally, at a local system I once used there was an issue where drivers
were intentionally not turning on the locating tracking, or configuring it
incorrectly, because of this.

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camillomiller
This will come out as cynical, I know, but I have to say that when I see
people so excited about freely contributing their time and efforts to the
product of a global behemoth, something feels off. I know we all have a better
free service as a result, but still this is basically free work. If anything,
Google has been the most successful company ever in convincing people to work
for free (and hand over their data). No judgement intended, just an
observation.

~~~
darren_
GTFS feeds are open. The ‘G’ stands for general. This person is excited about
freely fixing this issue for _everyone_, they’ve just chosen to frame their
blogpost around the most popular surface for that feed.

huge disclaimer: I work at google, and on transit at that

~~~
pinwale
well, the "G" originally stood for Google.

~~~
jrockway
Somebody has to write the standards. Transit agencies don't care about making
a data format that works for other transit agencies, as it doesn't affect
them. Only companies that need data from multiple transit agencies will do
this kind of work.

There are two approaches to aggregating data. You can either treat each agency
as a unique snowflake, or you can convince all agencies to use the same
format. The former approach means that all work you do is only for you, and
you've built up an interesting base of intellectual property in an industry
that doesn't matter. (There is no money in providing transit directions.) The
latter means that anyone can show up and do neat things with transit data. (I
have my own little webpage, jrock.us/mta.html that uses this data to provide
me with exactly the interface I want. Do you think the MTA wanted to hire
programmers to make this for people like me? Absolutely not. But they did make
it for Google, and now I benefit.)

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robin_reala
While it’s true that there will be a lot of visitors using Google Maps, I
still think that it’s a shame that we’ve ended up reliant on a private company
to direct us around. In the ideal longer term, it’d be better to use this
effort to improve crowd-sourced or collaborative mapping solutions.

~~~
yorwba
I'm only aware of one open-source public transport lookup app, which is Öffi
[https://oeffi.schildbach.de/index.html](https://oeffi.schildbach.de/index.html)

It doesn't have data for Taiwan, unfortunately. Are there any that do?

Aside: Audrey Tang is also on HN, though not active much lately:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt)
It sometimes strikes me as surreal that powerful people actually hang out on
the same websites as people like you and me.

~~~
BubuIIC
There's also Transportr, they use the same library for accessing transit data
though. Transportr has some really good guides here, how it works under the
hood and how to help with contributing other networks:

[https://transportr.app/contribute/](https://transportr.app/contribute/)

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kelnos
> _It’s unclear how long the feed was incorrect, but the first time I noticed
> the error was in 2018._

My first visit after the new Taoyuan line was completed was in July 2017, and
I'm pretty sure it was incorrect then, too. A local told me about the new line
and said it was so much better, but when I tried to use GMaps to plot the
trip, it showed as much longer than the older, more complicated options (and
yes, I did end up taking a taxi).

On my more recent trips I've ignored GMaps and taken the Taoyuan line to/from
the airport, and it's so much nicer. If you're going somewhere near Taipei
Main Station, the total trip time is roughly the same as that of a taxi; even
if you're not, the cost savings is nice.

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irjustin
Love it, someone who cares and is willing to drive the issue all the way home.

I'm currently visiting San Francisco (SF) and experienced an opposite issue
where GMaps reported cheaper and it ended up being more expensive. The BART
train is a relatively fast, very cost effective way to get from SFO to
downtown SF, Powell station in particular.

I was debating Uber at $30-$40, but looked at GMaps for public and it told me
$2.50 to make that trip! Sure it takes 40 minutes with a bit more sketch, but
I'm visiting, I'm willing and it's cheap.

Loaded up my Clipper card (BART's transit payment card) and went - ultra
surprised when exited the turn style that my charge was $9.80.

The to/from the airport is significantly more expensive, which is
understandable, but $9.80 vs $30 is much different than $2.50 vs $30.

Mildly frustrating, but in the end, not the end of the world.

~~~
nhf
Looks like this is a known issue due to a misconfiguration of BART's transit
feed.

(Source: I work at Google and located the relevant bug, but I don't work on
maps.)

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autarch
When I was in Taiwan this past summer we took Uber to the airport from Taipei.
I'm pretty sure our decision was based on in part on this misinformation.
Well, now I'll know for our next visit!

~~~
komali2
My preferred method is a bus that gives you a great view of the mountains on
your way into Taipei. Plus they're like five bucks or something and take an
hour just like all the other ways.

~~~
_-___________-_
Except that the train actually takes 36 minutes, which is most of the point of
TFA.

~~~
komali2
Add on getting to and then waiting for the train to leave... The bus depot is
right outside the terminal exit.

I mean yes trains good, just saying.

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odiroot
Exactly too late for me.

I've been there in October and the data was not updated yet. I took the bus
(which was shown as being faster!) and got stuck in a traffic for 2h. I
arrived at my hotel exhausted and frustrated.

~~~
_-___________-_
I've got a strategy that's worked well almost everywhere in the world: never
take road-based transport if there's a rail option, even if the rail option
supposedly takes a bit longer.

Buses are less reliable, prone to traffic, less comfortable (especially if
crowded)...

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emilfihlman
What I don't understand is that Google sees exactly how long a trip with the
train takes and could have automatically fixed the estimate to the correct
one...

~~~
nhf
Google Maps entirely relies on the data given by transit agencies through
their GTFS feeds, whether they be static or real-time. It doesn't do the same
type of calculation that the driving navigation does where they average travel
times based on other users' movement.

There are some other apps like Transit App that attempt to crowdsource the
same data to reflect ETAs.

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Misteur-Z
I only use CityMapper now in Paris

1) I don't want to feed the Google behemoth

2) It's very very accurate, even tells if you should get in the
back/center/front to be closer to next commute/exit

3) They joke about strikes to brighten a bit those shitty days

[https://citymapper.com](https://citymapper.com)

