In praise of government: MARTA + iPhone = awesome
April 15, 2009 at 9:50 am by Andisheh Nouraee in NewsIt’s tax day and, since I’m contrarian, I’m going to spend the day praising government.
I’ll start with public transit.
I’ve had it for a while, but only recently have I started using my iPhone’s built-in, Google-powered public transit map. It’s fantastic.
Type-in starting and ending addresses and the iPhone gives you a MARTA rail and bus route to your destination, as well as the duration of the trip.
If you’re standing at a bus stop, the map will tell you when the next bus is scheduled to pass-by. If you’re not sure when you’re going to be able to start your trip, a very handy button allows you to scroll through every potential departure times.
MARTA’s web site does the same thing, but when I’m stuck at an auto repair shop in Roswell (like I was on Monday), or if I’m lying in a gutter somewhere and get tired of staring at the stars, I won’t necessarily have an Internet-connected laptop on which I can access MARTA’s web site for route information.
If all this sounds like praise for Apple and Google rather than MARTA, consider this: D.C.’s otherwise awesome public transit system refused for months to let Google have its route maps in a digestible form. As a result, iPhone and Google Maps users in DC were denied this function.
Praise be to MARTA for helping make their system easier to use.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Is this just the Maps app that is already on the iPhone or is it a different map? Sounds brilliant.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:35 am
It’s the standard map application that comes with every iPhone. Type in a request for directions and the results page has tabs for driving, walking, and mass transit.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:42 am
My car broke down last week and I’ve been using MARTA to get around via this iPhone app. Without it, I would’ve been stuck crying in the rain at least three times in the last few days. So, hells yeah for MARTA’s techno insight!
April 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Now if Apple would kill the AT&T deal, I could at least look cool and modern.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
if you do have a laptop with a net connection, trip.atltransit.com beats the pants off google transit.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
A few observations that others may find helpful:
(1) trip.atltransit.com WAS a good service, but it is not being maintained.
(2) Google is a couple of weeks behind MARTA’s own website when schedules are adjusted. A handful of routes were changed on 4/11/2009, so Google’s information for those routes should be double-checked with the MARTA site for the next several days.
(3) I have found MARTA and Google sometimes give different advice, and I often check them both. Usually (in my opinion) MARTA is better, but Google sometimes comes out ahead.