Real-Time Transit Tracking with GLONASS and Google Maps
Public transportation is very popular in Russia, but there is one huge problem: it isn’t very reliable. More accurately, you never for sure whether or when your bus is going to show up. This week the city of Novosibirsk rolled out a city-wide transit tracking system which solves that exact problem. From now on, anyone can check the location of city’s buses, trolleys and route taxis in real time.
Implemented using Google Maps and Russia’s GLONASS, the application allows you to select a bus route and see all vehicles currently on the road. You can drill down to each vehicle to see its schedule and exact location. The application works on both desktop and mobile browsers.
In addition to solving the problem of tracking, applications like this might create new revenue opportunities (advertisement, data licensing) for municipalities, increase the efficiency of the system and, as a side benefit, decrease the number of freezing Russians. I would love to see the Novosibirsk government partner with Waze and OpenStreetMap on the data front.
