A Hacked WiFi Router, an API, and a Toy Bus: It's the Ambient Bus Arrival Monito

JohnGrahamCumming writes "In this simple project, a hacked Linksys WRT54GL talks to a public API to get real-time bus information, and displays the times of the next buses on a model bus. Never miss the bus again! 'It's possible to reflash the Linksys with a custom Linux installation that lets me control the box completely (and still use it as a wireless router). There are various project, but I used OpenWRT. With OpenWRT it's possible to SSH into the box and treat it as any Linux server (albeit a rather slow one). But there's plenty of power to grab bus times and update an LED display connected to the WRT54GL's serial port. "

Transit providers should sell these

[hawguy]

The San Francisco Muni already has NextBus [nextmuni.com] powered LED displays at bus stops that show arrival time of the next few buses - they should package them up like this and sell them to transit riders as a quick and easy way to see the arrival time of the next bus at their stop. Much more convenient to look at the bus-shaped sign by the door to see that I have 2 minutes 'till the next bus than to pull out my phone, unlock it, and load up the app.

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 80s the Toronto bus system had a phone number on every stop. You dialed that, and got a quick automated voice telling you the next three bus's times of arrival. ETA was based on pickups across the city, so was very accurate.

So yeah, pick up the phone and hit speedial every morning and I knew exactly if I wanted a brisk or slow walk out the door. Absolutely great system.

Re:Over engineered

[History's Coming To]

It's so over-engineered it's easily adaptable and extendable to a commercial product. The buses in Edinburgh use much the same system, with a display at the bus stops telling you how far away the next bus is, usually to within a minute. Yeah, useless idea with no commercial applications whatsoever. *rollseyes*