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Following the introduction earlier this year of Where's My Bus?, the real-time mobile bus arrival application for the DC Circulator bus system, today the District Department of Transportation announced the launch of its own Circulator iPhone app, available for download for $0.99 from the iTunes Store.
Somewhat similar to how the NextBus iPhone App works, the DC Circulator application allows users to figure out the closest Circulator bus stop location to where they are physically, based on GPS capability. The application requires that you select your chosen Circulator route before it will show you the closest stop, however, and the route map provided within the app is not at all interactive -- it's more or less just a static, .PDF style map that comes as a companion to the Where's My Bus? data.
We've experienced a pretty wide range in terms of the usefulness of the real time Circulator arrival data that's been available since June, and this application uses the exact same data, so there's no improvement in that area. Sometimes, results turn up helpful information, like that a bus is only 0.3 miles from the selected stop. Other times, it just seems to turn up a bunch of gibberish about how three different buses are "finishing its previous route" while none appear to actually be headed in the right direction – and then a Circulator will just show up to pick you up anyway two minutes later. Still, for only $0.99, the Circulator iPhone app is much, much faster than the free mobile web version, which, combined with the GPS feature, makes the purchase a no-brainer, at least until someone manages to integrate NextBus with the Circulator data into a single application.
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This is one of the first of many benefits that will come from DC putting it's municipal data catalog into the public domain- a first for any city and one being emulated by New York, Boston, San Francisco, etc.
Circulator Union Station - Navy Yard route is now officially dead on the weekends until next year. This leaves those without cars in Navy Yard area with no bus to the Eastern Market or any decent grocery outlets from now until the Nats play at home next year. (Safeway on M SW should not be considered a grocery.) Recall the nice arrangment WMATA got...ridding themselves of the N22 bus line. Ahhhh, citizen disenfranchisement for the sake of the greater good. All of you who loved this deal, please keep your fingers off the keyboards. I feel like whining about it.
Isn't there a Harris Teeter on the way down there?
One exists at Potomac Avenue and the one to come is estimated to arrive in 3 years.
I do think they should place this data in the public domain, but this app is not the benefit of such a program; it was developed internally by the DC Government (Office of the CTO).
Huh, you're right. I thought it grew out of the Apps for Democracy program
http://newsroom.dc.gov/show.aspx/agency/octo/section/2/release/18037
Yea, now I can finally know that bus is coming in 30 min late rather than lying to myself thinking that it's coming in 5.
I think that the construction on 14th Street currently makes getting off at Columbia Heights a much longer process because it is difficult for the bus to make the left turn onto Columbia easily. DC Circulator should discontinue the stop at 14th and Columbia and put a stop instead at 14th and Euclid or Fairmont. This would allow Columbia Heights traffic to get out and give the bus enough time to change into the left lane and make the turn onto Columbia.
Aren't all the busses on GPS already? What's preventing an actual realtime mapping app showing you where the frigging bus is right now? And how much longer do we have to wait for SkyNet to become sentient so these idiots can look for a new job?
I think it's kind of ridiculous to charge anything for this app. Since DC OCTO created it, it should be free.
does anyone know if they are going to be releasing a similar blackberry app for either circulator or next bus?
The NextBus folk have said they were looking at releasing something for other platforms. Not sure which one(s) they plan to do first.