[HN Gopher] Organic maps: Experimental feed based public transpo...
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       Organic maps: Experimental feed based public transport mapping
        
       Author : anewhnaccount3
       Score  : 97 points
       Date   : 2024-08-04 10:37 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | denysvitali wrote:
       | Does this mean that the routing will happen on the app? This
       | might be a bit resource intensive, but great feature (especially
       | since it will work offline!)
        
         | maelito wrote:
         | I believe the answer should be on this big issue
         | https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/5331
        
         | alsodumb wrote:
         | I don't think routing is that resource intensive, especially in
         | transit setting where there are set number of stops (nodes) and
         | the graph is fairly static - we can do tons of preprocessing
         | and then routing queries would have minimal computational
         | overhead.
        
           | maelito wrote:
           | It is. Especially to do multimodal routing offline.
           | 
           | https://github.com/motis-project/motis/issues/423
        
             | alsodumb wrote:
             | Thanks for sharing the link! Multimodal routing definitely
             | changes the game, Imma go through the issue.
        
           | denysvitali wrote:
           | I did implement an A* routing "offline" routing algorithm
           | based on GTFS data + walking paths (OptiTravel) and built a
           | GTFS server (to easily serve the data, do geospatial queries,
           | ...) a few years ago. Granted that this was a university
           | project, for some cities the calculation was rather intensive
           | (e.g: London). I might be wrong though.
           | 
           | [1]: https://github.com/denysvitali/optitravel
           | 
           | [2]: https://github.com/denysvitali/gtfs-server
        
       | maelito wrote:
       | The document doesn't say which routing engine is used.
       | 
       | I'm currently integrating Motis on a similar initiative (a french
       | open source Web map, https://cartes.app). More is needed to
       | provide a full transit map experience, but Motis does the
       | essential part.
       | 
       | We're not far from transit calculation as an open source
       | commodity in countries that publish their transit data as GTFS.
       | E.g. in France there is a whole team called
       | transport.data.gouv.fr that deploys a website + API and do the
       | necessary to convince and help local transport agencies to
       | respect the law.
       | 
       | Ingesting this whole dataset is not trivial, lots of bugs arise
       | (e.g. Flixbus's agency id : 0 or conflicting calendar_dates.txt
       | ids between different datasets) but a barebone version goes live
       | in 4 seconds (per big agency) of parsing by Motis's Nigiri
       | module.
       | 
       | The developer of Motis is quite involved, and came to Organic
       | Maps's discussion here
       | https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/5331#issue...
       | 
       | Then comes the hardest part IMHO : the UI. Motis provides
       | intermodal routing with the choice of walk / reduced mobility /
       | bicycle / car / car + parking before and after the bus, and all
       | this needs to be integrated in a UI that can rival Google / Apple
       | Maps / Transitapp.com / etc
       | 
       | Organic Maps have very beautiful transit lines representation in
       | the style of Transit app's great work.
       | https://blog.transitapp.com/how-we-built-the-worlds-pretties...
       | 
       | Would be cool if some demo of the extended transit lines could be
       | provided by Organic Maps following this readme file.
        
         | notpushkin wrote:
         | > Organic Maps have very beautiful transit lines representation
         | in the style of Transit app's great work.
         | 
         | I've just opened up Chicago in Organic Maps and it isn't
         | anything like Transit app: https://u.ale.sh/omaps-chicago-
         | loop.jpg
         | 
         | It works great for simpler transit systems, but certainly
         | there's some room for improvement!
        
       | myself248 wrote:
       | Related, shouldn't it be possible to get data from rail
       | signalling radios, and infer when a train is blocking a level
       | crossing, and mark a temporary closure on that road so traffic is
       | routed around it?
       | 
       | In the US at least, trains sometimes block crossings for upwards
       | of 10 minutes, and it can be very worthwhile to drive around.
       | Doubly so if you could know en-route and seamlessly reroute,
       | rather than having to approach the crossing to discover the
       | closure.
        
         | bobthepanda wrote:
         | Nearly all level crossings are required to, at the very least,
         | trigger a signal with audible sounds and possibly gates, so you
         | just need that same switch to update some online status.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | Many crossings in th US actually do not have any warning
           | lights or gates, the only warning of an approaching train is
           | the horn from the locomotive. Low-traffic (either in terms of
           | cars or trains) crossings are often unsignaled.
        
       | carom wrote:
       | While I don't use Organic Maps as my daily driver because there
       | is no traffic data, it has been invaluable to have on my phone.
       | It is one of the best offline and trail maps I've used.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-04 23:00 UTC)