Schedule post

output/2013/index.html

@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@
         <!--Body content-->
         <div class="postbox">
         <h1>Posts for year 2013</h1>
-        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
+        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html">[2013-07-28 16:26] Jeep and Bus Schedules</a>
+            </li><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/elevation-data-in-otp.html">[2013-07-23 18:23] Elevation Data in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/graphserver.html">[2013-07-23 14:48] GraphServer</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/transit-wand.html">[2013-07-15 22:45] Transit Wand</a>

output/assets/js/tag_cloud_data.json

@@ -1 +1 @@
-{"programming": [10, "/categories/programming.html"], "lets-debug": [1, "/categories/lets-debug.html"], "philippine-transit-app": [10, "/categories/philippine-transit-app.html"]}
+{"programming": [11, "/categories/programming.html"], "lets-debug": [1, "/categories/lets-debug.html"], "philippine-transit-app": [11, "/categories/philippine-transit-app.html"]}

output/categories/lets-debug.xml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
-<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (lets-debug)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 16:24:44 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>GTFS Editor</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/gtfs-editor.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Link: &lt;a href="https://github.com/conveyal/gtfs-editor"&gt;https://github.com/conveyal/gtfs-editor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
+<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (lets-debug)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:07:38 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>GTFS Editor</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/gtfs-editor.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Link: &lt;a href="https://github.com/conveyal/gtfs-editor"&gt;https://github.com/conveyal/gtfs-editor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt; they really meant under development&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;When I first saw the source of GTFS Editor, I was ecstatic. They used &lt;a href="http://playframework.com/"&gt;Play framework&lt;/a&gt;!!! Not only that, they're targeting PostgreSQL as the main database. Those are our favorite tools for building webapps at By Implication. I was a bit sad though, when I saw it was on the 1.x release of Play though. I did have some experience with that release, but not as much compared to 2.x.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Getting it to actually run though, wasn't very pleasant. The initial setup was easy enough. Get &lt;a href="http://www.playframework.com/download"&gt;Play 1.2.5&lt;/a&gt;, install Postgres with PostGIS, clone the repo and create backing database in Postgres. Some minor additional steps you need are to create the PostGIS extension on the database. The schema is automatically generated and applied by Play so that should be all that's necessary. Wonderful. Then, run play, open a browser, go to &lt;a href="http://localhost:9000"&gt;http://localhost:9000&lt;/a&gt;, compilation error. Fantastic.&lt;/p&gt;

output/categories/philippine-transit-app.html

@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@
         <!--Body content-->
         <div class="postbox">
         <h1>Posts about philippine-transit-app</h1>
-        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
+        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html">[2013-07-28 16:26] Jeep and Bus Schedules</a>
+            </li><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/elevation-data-in-otp.html">[2013-07-23 18:23] Elevation Data in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/graphserver.html">[2013-07-23 14:48] GraphServer</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/transit-wand.html">[2013-07-15 22:45] Transit Wand</a>

output/categories/philippine-transit-app.xml

@@ -1,5 +1,24 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
-<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (philippine-transit-app)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 16:24:44 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
+<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (philippine-transit-app)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:07:38 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Jeep and Bus Schedules</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/'&lt;/span&gt; calendar.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;If we set the frequency to one minute, it &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^72/ s/,600/,60/'&lt;/span&gt; frequencies.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 08:26:31 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Roundabout route from UP to Ateneo" src="/galleries/transit/otproundabout.png"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This is just so hilariously wrong. It's much simpler to just walk along Katipunan Avenue.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;OTP couldn't possibly be that dumb though, so there must be something we're doing wrong. If you notice, Katipunan Avenue is colored red compared to the other streets. OTP seems to be avoiding any path that goes along Katipunan Avenue. The problem might have something to do with the "road type" designated to Katipunan.&lt;/p&gt;
@@ -284,8 +303,4 @@ Caused by: java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0
 &lt;p&gt;From what I've seen of the data, they handled the first problem well enough. Stops are defined as where people typically get on the jeep or bus. This is good, but they didn't define a shape for the routes. There is no information as to which exact roads they pass through. All we have to go by are the stops to show the route on a map.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="sample route" src="http://i.imgur.com/NSVlryE.jpg"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The problem isn't that bad though. The agencies could still add the shapes later on. Or maybe an app challenge participant could make an app around fixing the routes via crowd-sourcing or similar. The shape itself isn't that important for a rudimentary directions app, but if we want better apps, we will need better data.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Philippine Transit App Challenge</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last week, the DOTC launched the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com"&gt;Philippine Transit App Challenge&lt;/a&gt;. It's a competition to build something great using the newly available 1) jeepney/bus/rail routes and 2) traffic incident data in Metro Manila and Cebu.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I'm actually quite excited about this as it's not everyday our government does wonderful things. Many people have been waiting for this kind of data to be available. Before, the only way to figure out which jeeps to ride to get from A to B is by asking other people. The website of the LTFRB used to just have a list of jeepney routes, but nothing else, no maps or list of stops.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;During the launch, they also presented how CITOM (the Cebu MMDA) is pilot-testing a &lt;a href="http://cebutraffic.org/"&gt;traffic tracking system&lt;/a&gt;. What they did was supply Android phones to taxi drivers. The phones send GPS data which can then be aggregated to see what the average speeds along streets are. This also benefits the taxi company as it provides easy tracking of their taxis compared to their old telephone/radio with pen-and-paper process.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/"&gt;route data&lt;/a&gt; are already available, as well as the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-citom-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Cebu&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-mmda-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Metro Manila&lt;/a&gt; incident data. You do have to register to access them though. Right now, they're just one-off dumps of the data but the various agencies have promised to provide consistently updated data. This will be provided via ASTI later in the year.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I've just started looking at the route data and playing around with it. The quality could be better, but I'm glad we at least have something to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jul 2013 16:17:37 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
+&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

output/categories/programming.html

@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@
         <!--Body content-->
         <div class="postbox">
         <h1>Posts about programming</h1>
-        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
+        <ul class="unstyled"><li><a href="../posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html">[2013-07-28 16:26] Jeep and Bus Schedules</a>
+            </li><li><a href="../posts/highways-in-otp.html">[2013-07-24 23:15] Highways in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/elevation-data-in-otp.html">[2013-07-23 18:23] Elevation Data in OTP</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/graphserver.html">[2013-07-23 14:48] GraphServer</a>
             </li><li><a href="../posts/transit-wand.html">[2013-07-15 22:45] Transit Wand</a>

output/categories/programming.xml

@@ -1,5 +1,24 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
-<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (programming)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 16:24:44 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
+<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer (programming)</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:07:37 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Jeep and Bus Schedules</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/'&lt;/span&gt; calendar.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;If we set the frequency to one minute, it &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^72/ s/,600/,60/'&lt;/span&gt; frequencies.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 08:26:31 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Roundabout route from UP to Ateneo" src="/galleries/transit/otproundabout.png"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This is just so hilariously wrong. It's much simpler to just walk along Katipunan Avenue.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;OTP couldn't possibly be that dumb though, so there must be something we're doing wrong. If you notice, Katipunan Avenue is colored red compared to the other streets. OTP seems to be avoiding any path that goes along Katipunan Avenue. The problem might have something to do with the "road type" designated to Katipunan.&lt;/p&gt;
@@ -284,8 +303,4 @@ Caused by: java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0
 &lt;p&gt;From what I've seen of the data, they handled the first problem well enough. Stops are defined as where people typically get on the jeep or bus. This is good, but they didn't define a shape for the routes. There is no information as to which exact roads they pass through. All we have to go by are the stops to show the route on a map.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="sample route" src="http://i.imgur.com/NSVlryE.jpg"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The problem isn't that bad though. The agencies could still add the shapes later on. Or maybe an app challenge participant could make an app around fixing the routes via crowd-sourcing or similar. The shape itself isn't that important for a rudimentary directions app, but if we want better apps, we will need better data.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Philippine Transit App Challenge</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last week, the DOTC launched the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com"&gt;Philippine Transit App Challenge&lt;/a&gt;. It's a competition to build something great using the newly available 1) jeepney/bus/rail routes and 2) traffic incident data in Metro Manila and Cebu.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I'm actually quite excited about this as it's not everyday our government does wonderful things. Many people have been waiting for this kind of data to be available. Before, the only way to figure out which jeeps to ride to get from A to B is by asking other people. The website of the LTFRB used to just have a list of jeepney routes, but nothing else, no maps or list of stops.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;During the launch, they also presented how CITOM (the Cebu MMDA) is pilot-testing a &lt;a href="http://cebutraffic.org/"&gt;traffic tracking system&lt;/a&gt;. What they did was supply Android phones to taxi drivers. The phones send GPS data which can then be aggregated to see what the average speeds along streets are. This also benefits the taxi company as it provides easy tracking of their taxis compared to their old telephone/radio with pen-and-paper process.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/"&gt;route data&lt;/a&gt; are already available, as well as the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-citom-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Cebu&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-mmda-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Metro Manila&lt;/a&gt; incident data. You do have to register to access them though. Right now, they're just one-off dumps of the data but the various agencies have promised to provide consistently updated data. This will be provided via ASTI later in the year.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I've just started looking at the route data and playing around with it. The quality could be better, but I'm glad we at least have something to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jul 2013 16:17:37 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
+&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

output/index-1.html

@@ -14,6 +14,58 @@
         <ul class="nav"></ul></ul></div>
         <div class="content">
             
+        <div class="postbox">
+        <div class="title">
+            <h1><a href="posts/fare-data.html">Fare Data</a>
+            <small>  
+                 Posted: 2013-07-13 21:15
+            </small></h1>
+        </div>
+        <hr><p>As part of the data released by the DOTC, we also have the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/">fare matrix</a> for aircon buses, ordinary buses and jeeps. All as wonderful images. The data is also actually available from the <a href="http://ltfrb.gov.ph/main/farerates">LTFRB website</a>. Generally, the fare scheme is represented as "pay <em>X</em> pesos for the first <em>Y</em> kilometers, pay <em>Z</em> for every succeeding kilometer." Instead of a table, we can simply represent this as a formula instead,</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="n">base_fare</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">distance</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">initial</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="n">per_km</span>
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>The relevant values for the three services are:</p>
+<table><thead><tr><td>type</td>
+    <td>base_fare</td>
+    <td>initial</td>
+    <td>per_km</td>
+  </tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>bus aircon</td>
+    <td>12.00</td>
+    <td>5 km</td>
+    <td>2.20</td>
+  </tr><tr><td>bus ordinary</td>
+    <td>10.00</td>
+    <td>5 km</td>
+    <td>1.85</td>
+  </tr><tr><td>jeep aircon</td>
+    <td>8.00</td>
+    <td>4 km</td>
+    <td>1.40</td>
+  </tr></tbody></table><p>It isn't as simple as that though. Fares are also rounded to the nearest 25 centavos. So we'd need to round them off correctly. This can be achieved by doing,</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="n">round</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">calculated_fare</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mf">4.0</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mf">4.0</span>
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>There's also the discounted fare for students, senior citizens and persons with disability. They get 20% off the fare (prior to rounding) and the resulting fare is rounded off as well.</p>
+<p>Doing just this, we actually do get the same results as the fare matrices in the image for the most part. There are some discrepancies with the discounted jeep fares. I've tried to resolve it by tweaking around with the formulas, but it really doesn't make sense in any way. I presume these were manually adjusted for one reason or another.</p>
+<p>Here's a <a href="uploads/farematrix.rb">script</a> that generates CSVs of all the three fare matrices. If you're too lazy to run it, here are links to the <a href="uploads/pub_aircon.csv">aircon bus</a>, <a href="uploads/pub_ordinary.csv">ordinary bus</a> and <a href="uploads/puj.csv">jeep</a> fare matrices.</p>
+<h4>GTFS compatibility</h4>
+<p>As is, the provided GTFS data does not have any fare data. I imagine this is because the existing spec doesn't have good support for distance-based fares like we have in the Philippines. Judging from the <a href="https://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/FareExamples">fare examples</a>, the only reasonable way we could implement distance-based fares is following example 6. This would involve setting a fare for each possible pair of stops based on the distance between them. This isn't exactly ideal. In fact, the people originally working on the DOTC project have voiced <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/gtfs-fare-wg/V63xRSnQJGw">issues</a> and made <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gtfs-changes/uybrAokZ9Cg/rqlzXdMypUgJ">proposals</a> for having distance-based fares included into GTFS.</p>
+<p>Apparently, public transit fares are a really complicated thing. You have fares based on distance, number of stops passed through, and transfers which may or may not cost extra. Not only that, you might have discounted fares, or first-class vs economy fares. The community will want to get it right before it's formally included in the spec. You can see the current state of the consolidated <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mK3--o5g4-3cCXaqmch92U63JTwChh0L2VCmcDViIlM/edit">GTFS fare proposal here</a>.</p>
+<p>Even in it's proposal form though, we might have hope of being able to see these being used. There's currently a <a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-gtfs-modules/pull/30">pull request</a> for supporting the distance-based fare scheme into the OneBusAway libraries. The libraries actually used by GTFS Editor and OpenTripPlanner for working with GTFS data.</p>
+<h4>Remaining Problems</h4>
+<p>Given all that, it would probably still be a long way before this allows us to make a really good routing app. We still don't have shape data, so the distance estimates would really be rough estimates at best. There's no support for rounding to the nearest centavo. I realize that's just nitpicking, but if we want something truly polished, even that has to be taken care of.</p>
+<p>We also don't know if the jeeps or buses strictly follow the distance-based scheme. After all, if you can get on and off anywhere, you can't really measure distance that exactly. I assume they generally work off the notion of "zones" than actual distance travelled. In that sense, they work more similarly to the LRT which has fares based on how many stops you pass. For jeeps and buses, your fare is probably based more on how many "zones" you pass through.</p>
+<h4>Conclusion</h4>
+<p>Philip, a co-worker of mine at By Implication, had suggested that we might want to use a different model than what the GTFS proposes. I have to agree with him. At this point, the GTFS doesn't really fit with our system. But I do think that open data and standards are great. In fact, I applaud the developers who made proposals for the fare system, as those are great first steps towards making the GTFS a more universal standard.</p>
+<p>Side note: I'd also actually really like to hear about the DOTC developers' experience with the project. It would be nice if they had a devblog.</p>
+            
+    <p>
+        <a href="posts/fare-data.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/fare-data.html">Comments</a>
+
+        </p></div>
         <div class="postbox">
         <div class="title">
             <h1><a href="posts/gtfs-editor.html">GTFS Editor</a>
@@ -278,28 +330,14 @@ Caused by: java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0
         <a href="posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html">Comments</a>
 
         </p></div>
-        <div class="postbox">
-        <div class="title">
-            <h1><a href="posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html">Philippine Transit App Challenge</a>
-            <small>  
-                 Posted: 2013-07-07 00:17
-            </small></h1>
-        </div>
-        <hr><p>Last week, the DOTC launched the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com">Philippine Transit App Challenge</a>. It's a competition to build something great using the newly available 1) jeepney/bus/rail routes and 2) traffic incident data in Metro Manila and Cebu.</p>
-<p>I'm actually quite excited about this as it's not everyday our government does wonderful things. Many people have been waiting for this kind of data to be available. Before, the only way to figure out which jeeps to ride to get from A to B is by asking other people. The website of the LTFRB used to just have a list of jeepney routes, but nothing else, no maps or list of stops.</p>
-<p>During the launch, they also presented how CITOM (the Cebu MMDA) is pilot-testing a <a href="http://cebutraffic.org/">traffic tracking system</a>. What they did was supply Android phones to taxi drivers. The phones send GPS data which can then be aggregated to see what the average speeds along streets are. This also benefits the taxi company as it provides easy tracking of their taxis compared to their old telephone/radio with pen-and-paper process.</p>
-<p>The <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/">route data</a> are already available, as well as the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-citom-traffic-alert-platform/">Cebu</a> and <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-mmda-traffic-alert-platform/">Metro Manila</a> incident data. You do have to register to access them though. Right now, they're just one-off dumps of the data but the various agencies have promised to provide consistently updated data. This will be provided via ASTI later in the year.</p>
-<p>I've just started looking at the route data and playing around with it. The quality could be better, but I'm glad we at least have something to work with.</p>
-            
-    <p>
-        <a href="posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html">Comments</a>
-
-        </p></div>
     
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@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><meta name="description" content=""><meta name="author" content="Thomas Dy"><title>Pleasant Programmer (old posts page 2) | Pleasant Programmer</title><link href="assets/css/rst.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="assets/css/code.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="assets/css/colorbox.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="assets/css/theme.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="assets/css/custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><!--[if lt IE 9]>
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+            
+        <div class="postbox">
+        <div class="title">
+            <h1><a href="posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html">Philippine Transit App Challenge</a>
+            <small>  
+                 Posted: 2013-07-07 00:17
+            </small></h1>
+        </div>
+        <hr><p>Last week, the DOTC launched the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com">Philippine Transit App Challenge</a>. It's a competition to build something great using the newly available 1) jeepney/bus/rail routes and 2) traffic incident data in Metro Manila and Cebu.</p>
+<p>I'm actually quite excited about this as it's not everyday our government does wonderful things. Many people have been waiting for this kind of data to be available. Before, the only way to figure out which jeeps to ride to get from A to B is by asking other people. The website of the LTFRB used to just have a list of jeepney routes, but nothing else, no maps or list of stops.</p>
+<p>During the launch, they also presented how CITOM (the Cebu MMDA) is pilot-testing a <a href="http://cebutraffic.org/">traffic tracking system</a>. What they did was supply Android phones to taxi drivers. The phones send GPS data which can then be aggregated to see what the average speeds along streets are. This also benefits the taxi company as it provides easy tracking of their taxis compared to their old telephone/radio with pen-and-paper process.</p>
+<p>The <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/">route data</a> are already available, as well as the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-citom-traffic-alert-platform/">Cebu</a> and <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-mmda-traffic-alert-platform/">Metro Manila</a> incident data. You do have to register to access them though. Right now, they're just one-off dumps of the data but the various agencies have promised to provide consistently updated data. This will be provided via ASTI later in the year.</p>
+<p>I've just started looking at the route data and playing around with it. The quality could be better, but I'm glad we at least have something to work with.</p>
+            
+    <p>
+        <a href="posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html">Comments</a>
+
+        </p></div>
+    
+<div>
+<ul class="pager clearfix"><li class="previous">
+        <a href="index-1.html">← Newer posts</a>
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+       <script type="text/javascript">var disqus_shortname="pleasantprog";(function(){var a=document.createElement("script");a.async=true;a.type="text/javascript";a.src="http://"+disqus_shortname+".disqus.com/count.js";(document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("BODY")[0]).appendChild(a)}());</script></div>
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output/index.html

@@ -14,6 +14,38 @@
         <ul class="nav"></ul></ul></div>
         <div class="content">
             
+        <div class="postbox">
+        <div class="title">
+            <h1><a href="posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html">Jeep and Bus Schedules</a>
+            <small>  
+                 Posted: 2013-07-28 16:26
+            </small></h1>
+        </div>
+        <hr><p>Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.</p>
+<p>The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.</p>
+<p>This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.</p>
+<p>Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.</p>
+<p>Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.</p>
+<p>The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.</p>
+<p>While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="c"># 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses</span>
+sed -i .bak <span class="s1">'/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/'</span> calendar.txt
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.</p>
+<p>If we set the frequency to one minute, it <em>might</em> give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="c"># jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72</span>
+sed -i .bak <span class="s1">'/^72/ s/,600/,60/'</span> frequencies.txt
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.</p>
+            
+    <p>
+        <a href="posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html">Comments</a>
+
+        </p></div>
         <div class="postbox">
         <div class="title">
             <h1><a href="posts/highways-in-otp.html">Highways in OTP</a>
@@ -100,58 +132,6 @@
         <a href="posts/transit-wand.html#disqus_thread" data-disqus-identifier="cache/posts/transit-wand.html">Comments</a>
 
         </p></div>
-        <div class="postbox">
-        <div class="title">
-            <h1><a href="posts/fare-data.html">Fare Data</a>
-            <small>  
-                 Posted: 2013-07-13 21:15
-            </small></h1>
-        </div>
-        <hr><p>As part of the data released by the DOTC, we also have the <a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/">fare matrix</a> for aircon buses, ordinary buses and jeeps. All as wonderful images. The data is also actually available from the <a href="http://ltfrb.gov.ph/main/farerates">LTFRB website</a>. Generally, the fare scheme is represented as "pay <em>X</em> pesos for the first <em>Y</em> kilometers, pay <em>Z</em> for every succeeding kilometer." Instead of a table, we can simply represent this as a formula instead,</p>
-<div class="code"><pre><span class="n">base_fare</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">distance</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">initial</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="n">per_km</span>
-</pre></div>
-
-
-<p>The relevant values for the three services are:</p>
-<table><thead><tr><td>type</td>
-    <td>base_fare</td>
-    <td>initial</td>
-    <td>per_km</td>
-  </tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>bus aircon</td>
-    <td>12.00</td>
-    <td>5 km</td>
-    <td>2.20</td>
-  </tr><tr><td>bus ordinary</td>
-    <td>10.00</td>
-    <td>5 km</td>
-    <td>1.85</td>
-  </tr><tr><td>jeep aircon</td>
-    <td>8.00</td>
-    <td>4 km</td>
-    <td>1.40</td>
-  </tr></tbody></table><p>It isn't as simple as that though. Fares are also rounded to the nearest 25 centavos. So we'd need to round them off correctly. This can be achieved by doing,</p>
-<div class="code"><pre><span class="n">round</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">calculated_fare</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mf">4.0</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mf">4.0</span>
-</pre></div>
-
-
-<p>There's also the discounted fare for students, senior citizens and persons with disability. They get 20% off the fare (prior to rounding) and the resulting fare is rounded off as well.</p>
-<p>Doing just this, we actually do get the same results as the fare matrices in the image for the most part. There are some discrepancies with the discounted jeep fares. I've tried to resolve it by tweaking around with the formulas, but it really doesn't make sense in any way. I presume these were manually adjusted for one reason or another.</p>
-<p>Here's a <a href="uploads/farematrix.rb">script</a> that generates CSVs of all the three fare matrices. If you're too lazy to run it, here are links to the <a href="uploads/pub_aircon.csv">aircon bus</a>, <a href="uploads/pub_ordinary.csv">ordinary bus</a> and <a href="uploads/puj.csv">jeep</a> fare matrices.</p>
-<h4>GTFS compatibility</h4>
-<p>As is, the provided GTFS data does not have any fare data. I imagine this is because the existing spec doesn't have good support for distance-based fares like we have in the Philippines. Judging from the <a href="https://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/FareExamples">fare examples</a>, the only reasonable way we could implement distance-based fares is following example 6. This would involve setting a fare for each possible pair of stops based on the distance between them. This isn't exactly ideal. In fact, the people originally working on the DOTC project have voiced <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/gtfs-fare-wg/V63xRSnQJGw">issues</a> and made <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gtfs-changes/uybrAokZ9Cg/rqlzXdMypUgJ">proposals</a> for having distance-based fares included into GTFS.</p>
-<p>Apparently, public transit fares are a really complicated thing. You have fares based on distance, number of stops passed through, and transfers which may or may not cost extra. Not only that, you might have discounted fares, or first-class vs economy fares. The community will want to get it right before it's formally included in the spec. You can see the current state of the consolidated <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mK3--o5g4-3cCXaqmch92U63JTwChh0L2VCmcDViIlM/edit">GTFS fare proposal here</a>.</p>
-<p>Even in it's proposal form though, we might have hope of being able to see these being used. There's currently a <a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-gtfs-modules/pull/30">pull request</a> for supporting the distance-based fare scheme into the OneBusAway libraries. The libraries actually used by GTFS Editor and OpenTripPlanner for working with GTFS data.</p>
-<h4>Remaining Problems</h4>
-<p>Given all that, it would probably still be a long way before this allows us to make a really good routing app. We still don't have shape data, so the distance estimates would really be rough estimates at best. There's no support for rounding to the nearest centavo. I realize that's just nitpicking, but if we want something truly polished, even that has to be taken care of.</p>
-<p>We also don't know if the jeeps or buses strictly follow the distance-based scheme. After all, if you can get on and off anywhere, you can't really measure distance that exactly. I assume they generally work off the notion of "zones" than actual distance travelled. In that sense, they work more similarly to the LRT which has fares based on how many stops you pass. For jeeps and buses, your fare is probably based more on how many "zones" you pass through.</p>
-<h4>Conclusion</h4>
-<p>Philip, a co-worker of mine at By Implication, had suggested that we might want to use a different model than what the GTFS proposes. I have to agree with him. At this point, the GTFS doesn't really fit with our system. But I do think that open data and standards are great. In fact, I applaud the developers who made proposals for the fare system, as those are great first steps towards making the GTFS a more universal standard.</p>
-<p>Side note: I'd also actually really like to hear about the DOTC developers' experience with the project. It would be nice if they had a devblog.</p>
-            
-    <p>
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+<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><meta name="description" content=""><meta name="author" content="Thomas Dy"><title>Jeep and Bus Schedules | Pleasant Programmer</title><link href="../assets/css/rst.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="../assets/css/code.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="../assets/css/colorbox.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="../assets/css/theme.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><link href="../assets/css/custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><!--[if lt IE 9]>
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+    <h1>Jeep and Bus Schedules</h1>
+
+        <hr><small>
+            Posted: 2013-07-28 16:26
+            
+
+            
+          |  More posts about
+            <a class="tag" href="../categories/philippine-transit-app.html"><span class="badge badge-info">philippine-transit-app</span></a>
+            <a class="tag" href="../categories/programming.html"><span class="badge badge-info">programming</span></a>
+
+        </small>
+    </div>
+    <hr><p>Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.</p>
+<p>The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.</p>
+<p>This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.</p>
+<p>Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.</p>
+<p>Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.</p>
+<p>The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.</p>
+<p>While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="c"># 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses</span>
+sed -i .bak <span class="s1">'/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/'</span> calendar.txt
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.</p>
+<p>If we set the frequency to one minute, it <em>might</em> give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.</p>
+<div class="code"><pre><span class="c"># jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72</span>
+sed -i .bak <span class="s1">'/^72/ s/,600/,60/'</span> frequencies.txt
+</pre></div>
+
+
+<p>Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.</p>
+    
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output/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+<!-- 
+.. link: 
+.. description: 
+.. tags: philippine-transit-app, programming
+.. date: 2013/07/28 16:26:31
+.. title: Jeep and Bus Schedules
+.. slug: jeep-and-bus-schedules
+-->
+
+Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.
+
+The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.
+
+This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.
+
+Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.
+
+Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.
+
+The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.
+
+While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.
+
+    :::sh
+    # 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses
+    sed -i .bak '/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/' calendar.txt
+
+Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.
+
+If we set the frequency to one minute, it *might* give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.
+
+    :::sh
+    # jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72
+    sed -i .bak '/^72/ s/,600/,60/' frequencies.txt
+
+Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.

output/rss.xml

@@ -1,5 +1,24 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
-<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 16:24:44 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
+<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Pleasant Programmer</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com</link><description></description><lastBuildDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:07:38 GMT</lastBuildDate><generator>nikola</generator><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Jeep and Bus Schedules</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/'&lt;/span&gt; calendar.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;p&gt;If we set the frequency to one minute, it &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.&lt;/p&gt;
+&lt;div class="code"&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;span class="c"&gt;# jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72&lt;/span&gt;
+sed -i .bak &lt;span class="s1"&gt;'/^72/ s/,600/,60/'&lt;/span&gt; frequencies.txt
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
+
+
+&lt;p&gt;Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 28 Jul 2013 08:26:31 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Highways in OTP</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/highways-in-otp.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the weird things that happens with OTP is sometimes it gives absurdly roundabout routes. Here is OTP's suggested route for walking from UP to Ateneo:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="Roundabout route from UP to Ateneo" src="/galleries/transit/otproundabout.png"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This is just so hilariously wrong. It's much simpler to just walk along Katipunan Avenue.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;OTP couldn't possibly be that dumb though, so there must be something we're doing wrong. If you notice, Katipunan Avenue is colored red compared to the other streets. OTP seems to be avoiding any path that goes along Katipunan Avenue. The problem might have something to do with the "road type" designated to Katipunan.&lt;/p&gt;
@@ -284,8 +303,4 @@ Caused by: java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0
 &lt;p&gt;From what I've seen of the data, they handled the first problem well enough. Stops are defined as where people typically get on the jeep or bus. This is good, but they didn't define a shape for the routes. There is no information as to which exact roads they pass through. All we have to go by are the stops to show the route on a map.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img alt="sample route" src="http://i.imgur.com/NSVlryE.jpg"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The problem isn't that bad though. The agencies could still add the shapes later on. Or maybe an app challenge participant could make an app around fixing the routes via crowd-sourcing or similar. The shape itself isn't that important for a rudimentary directions app, but if we want better apps, we will need better data.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Philippine Transit App Challenge</title><link>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last week, the DOTC launched the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com"&gt;Philippine Transit App Challenge&lt;/a&gt;. It's a competition to build something great using the newly available 1) jeepney/bus/rail routes and 2) traffic incident data in Metro Manila and Cebu.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I'm actually quite excited about this as it's not everyday our government does wonderful things. Many people have been waiting for this kind of data to be available. Before, the only way to figure out which jeeps to ride to get from A to B is by asking other people. The website of the LTFRB used to just have a list of jeepney routes, but nothing else, no maps or list of stops.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;During the launch, they also presented how CITOM (the Cebu MMDA) is pilot-testing a &lt;a href="http://cebutraffic.org/"&gt;traffic tracking system&lt;/a&gt;. What they did was supply Android phones to taxi drivers. The phones send GPS data which can then be aggregated to see what the average speeds along streets are. This also benefits the taxi company as it provides easy tracking of their taxis compared to their old telephone/radio with pen-and-paper process.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-philippines-transit-information-service-gtfs/"&gt;route data&lt;/a&gt; are already available, as well as the &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-citom-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Cebu&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://philippine-transit.hackathome.com/dataset-mmda-traffic-alert-platform/"&gt;Metro Manila&lt;/a&gt; incident data. You do have to register to access them though. Right now, they're just one-off dumps of the data but the various agencies have promised to provide consistently updated data. This will be provided via ASTI later in the year.&lt;/p&gt;
-&lt;p&gt;I've just started looking at the route data and playing around with it. The quality could be better, but I'm glad we at least have something to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/philippine-transit-app-challenge.html</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jul 2013 16:17:37 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
+&lt;p&gt;There were also some minor issues with the data itself. Some of the files had extra columns. This normally isn't an issue, but it caused problems for &lt;a href="https://github.com/harrisony/gtfs_SQL_importer"&gt;GTFS SQL importer&lt;/a&gt;. There were also problems with matching the shape data with the stops when I tried it with &lt;a href="http://onebusaway.org"&gt;OneBusAway&lt;/a&gt;. They could probably be &lt;a href="https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki/Stop-to-Shape-Matching"&gt;fixed&lt;/a&gt; but that's for another day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><guid>http://pleasantprogrammer.com/posts/jeepney-and-bus-routes.html</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 Jul 2013 02:32:36 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

posts/jeep-and-bus-schedules.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+<!-- 
+.. link: 
+.. description: 
+.. tags: philippine-transit-app, programming
+.. date: 2013/07/28 16:26:31
+.. title: Jeep and Bus Schedules
+.. slug: jeep-and-bus-schedules
+-->
+
+Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no buses or jeepneys in the Philippines over the weekends? It would truly be a cyclist's paradise. Imagine biking along EDSA, normally that would be a death sentence, but according to the GTFS data, you shouldn't worry. I can assure you, it's still a death sentence.
+
+The GTFS spec defines 2 ways of statically specifying trip schedules. You can define the exact times that a service will arrive at a stop. You can also specify between what times the service is active and how often a new bus or jeep leaves the first stop. You also define which days those rules apply. You could say every MWF, the bus operates from 9:00AM to 9:00PM and every TTH, the bus services from 3:00AM to 11:00PM.
+
+This should be sufficient in theory, but real world conditions like traffic or the weather could throw the schedules off. To solve this, there's another spec, GTFS-realtime. This allows transit agencies to push temporary schedule updates and service announcements.
+
+Like much everything else about the Philippine transit system, there aren't really any "schedules" to speak of. It's generally whenever the buses or jeeps feel like it. So we have no static schedules. We don't have a central agency or the tracking technology to make it feasible to push updates via GTFS-RT.
+
+Ideally, we shouldn't bother inputting the schedule information into GTFS. Only the route data is really important for jeeps and buses. However, the schedule information is required in the GTFS, and routing apps wouldn't work without it. So we have to add a reasonable trip schedule for jeeps and buses.
+
+The current GTFS data does define these trip schedules. We assume that jeeps and buses operate between 6:00AM and 11:00PM and a new jeep passes by every 10 minutes. Also, jeeps and buses are defined to only operate on weekdays.
+
+While there might be jeeps who change routes or don't operate on weekends, I'm pretty sure that jeeps and buses run on weekends. We'll have to fix it ourselves temporarily since there's no central GTFS feed yet.
+
+    :::sh
+    # 724594 seems to be the service id used by jeeps and buses
+    sed -i .bak '/^724594/ s/0,0/1,1/' calendar.txt
+
+Another thing we could do is to adjust the time between buses, although the improvement is arguable. With the current 10 minutes between jeeps, it might provide some routes a significant advantage just because the timing is right. So you might get differing route suggestions depending on what time you planned the route. This makes sense when you're sure what the times are, so you can minimize the wait, but with jeeps, you never really know how long the wait will actually be.
+
+If we set the frequency to one minute, it *might* give better routes by eliminating the timing issue. Or not, it's kind of hard to tell.
+
+    :::sh
+    # jeep and bus route ids tend to start with 72
+    sed -i .bak '/^72/ s/,600/,60/' frequencies.txt
+
+Overall, the problems we're having is a symptom of the mismatch between our transit system and the GTFS. It would be great if our transit system gets better and we don't need to do hackish things for it to fit the GTFS, but that's still a dream. For now, all we can really do is fit a triangle into a square hole.