[HN Gopher] How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018)
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How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018)
Author : mpweiher
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-03-07 09:59 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (engineering.citymapper.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (engineering.citymapper.com)
| BORG_VS_RESTIC wrote:
| zimpenfish wrote:
| I worked for a company (back in 2009/10) that was putting LED
| advertising boards on the sides of (IIRC) NYC buses with an
| embedded PC to control them and report back to base. They were
| plagued - CF cards falling out from vibration, dirt and dust,
| electrical noise, etc. Needless to say, it was not a success.
| mandis wrote:
| They were too early would be my guess. In my opinion, embedded
| in today's time is easy and robust. Your thoughts?
| MisterTea wrote:
| > They were too early would be my guess.
|
| There were rugged PC's available back then for automotive use
| (think cop cars and the like). To me it sounds like they did
| not spec the hardware properly or installed it improperly.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| I like the emoji idea. So simple and practical both idea and the
| system as well
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If you already need an app on your phone to use the system...
| why not vibrate the phone? The user is likely holding in their
| hands to read something (or listening to music with it). I'm
| not looking at the display for an emoji...
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18662577/citymapper-londo...
|
| It seems like they gave up on this fairly quickly.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I thought they would have given up on deploying updates while
| the bus is driving (opposed to only when it's being serviced /
| stationed), but it appears like their whole business
| proposition didn't work as intended.
|
| To be honest, I'm usually fairly skeptical to all those "we're
| doing the same as X, but we'll use _data_ to make better
| decisions!" startups. It's incredibly difficult to validate, as
| you usually don't actually have the data until you've reached a
| certain critical mass, so you'll end up having to sell the
| dream instead.
| robbie-c wrote:
| They kind of bootstrapped around this quite well. The first
| product was a better Google Maps app, which meant they got
| people's journey data. I wonder if the real problem they ran
| into was just that public transport in London is pretty
| excellent, so even with journey data plus the ton of data
| that TFL provide, it's pretty hard to actually run anything
| better.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > public transport in London is pretty excellent
|
| Really ?!?
|
| I'm pretty sure most Londoners would disagree with that.
| Dirty, expensive, crowded, strikes and signal failures. TFL
| doing everything possible to avoid telling the truth,
| stating "good service" when everyone on the platform can
| see they're having a bad day in the office (again !).
|
| Compared to the Japan, the Nordic countries, Switzerland,
| South Korea, just to name a few, London is dire.
|
| Look at Japan, specifically Tokyo. More populous and
| densely populated than London. Yes the trains can get a
| little crowded at rush hour. But I've been visited a good
| few times now and I've never experienced the London-style
| horrors. Everything is punctual, clean, no strikes or
| signal failures. And that's just the Tokyo subway. The
| Shinkanzen is simply fabulous. Its great !
| sumtechguy wrote:
| When I used to write software like this. We typically had
| some sort of 'vpn', it was usually an isolated network 100%
| so you did not need that in the first place. For this I would
| have used an MDN on an isolated network. We would then write
| a solid bootstrap program with a watchdog on an ISR.
| Basically it would have an A/B area then we could flip
| between them as needed. If a particular version did not come
| up on a vehicle we could default it back to the old version.
| Usually some sort of flag that said 'yep this version is
| solid use it from now on'. Usually also the program itself
| could declare itself as bad usually catching itself in the
| crash and writing something out somewhere.
|
| Not 100% as vehicle env is pretty harsh. +/-12V in 1-2
| seconds on crank so you better have something to deal with
| that. -40f to +150f so you better have HW that can deal with
| that. Worry about how much flash wearing you have left. Oh
| and just general bouncing around, kicking hitting, coffee
| spills so your hardware better be decently hardened. Even
| then you still usually had those 10-20 vehicles that you just
| had to touch them. Usually it would be in the middle of
| Montana somewhere. If you were lucky it could be at a
| terminal. Oh and dont cost too much as your competitors
| probably have better and cheaper hardware.
| robbie-c wrote:
| I wonder how they're doing. Crunchbase
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/citymapper-limited/c...
| has a Series B for $40M back in 2016, and a crowdfunder for
| PS6.7M in 2021. I can't imagine the pandemic was kind to them.
| It's a shame really, I remember they were fairly active in the
| London tech meetup scene around their B, usually quite
| enjoyable talks.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Doing great, thanks, despite the pandemic! Still providing
| the best routing, hiring (they/we hired me last August), and
| now also with an SDK for putting all that goodness into your
| own apps: https://citymapper.com/powers
| sweezyjeezy wrote:
| I remember they had one of the crazier glassdoor pages I've
| seen - basically a bunch of disgruntled leavers calling the
| CEO a monster, from looking more recently it seems like they
| may have made some positive changes.
| yen223 wrote:
| Based on Glassdoor reviews at places I actually work at, I
| have learnt to never take Glassdoor reviews too seriously
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