A Hacked WiFi Router, an API, and a Toy Bus: It's the Ambient Bus Arrival Monito 53
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. "
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Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
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I did put my toaster on the internet - but now some guy in Finland keeps on burning my toast :(
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you're joking, but in a lot of large cities a car is unnecessary, and commuting by car is a very expensive option even if you have one (due to high fuel price, $20+/day parking, opportunity cost of driving yourself when you could be reading Slashdot on the bus, etc.) My wife and I earn enough to keep a nice car, but choose not to own one. We both have bicycles for commuting, and sublet our appartment's car spaces which more than covers membership in a car share program and rental cars when we go on holiday.
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That depends completely on the city.
I just cycled for about 20 minutes to get to work, mostly on a cycle path past a line of stopped cars on a primary route in London. The time to drive is about 30 minutes during the day (cars have a slightly less direct route and more traffic lights), the time for cars at night is about 15 minutes, the time for cars at rush hour is probably more like 45, but I've never tried.
It's a little annoying if it's raining (so I bought waterproofs), and more annoying if it's very w
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how do you do it?
Honestly, I'm not sure. I think it depends a lot on what part of the city you live in, and what other options there are. If the bus is a horribly inefficient but cheap way to get around, then only desperate people will use it. If you have bus-only lanes, pre-paid ticketing and other things to make the bus as fast or faster than a private car, the demographics change. In places like Sydney or London, most of the city's white-collar workforce come in to the city by bus or train/metro.
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1) Slightly to a lot (depending on the country) better social systems, so there are less junkies, nuts, filthy hobos etc.
2) More expensive private transport, including the cost of vehicle, fuel, insurance, and parking (which is often limited)
3) More frequent service (worse than every 20 minutes puts a lot of people off)
(2) and (3) together make the bus/train a better (or at least less-bad) option.
Buses aren't always pleasant to ride on. At 3:30 in the morning on Sunday in London they can be rammed full wit
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Much as I love to hate taking our city's (Ottawa, Canada) bus transit system, it is supposedly one of the best in North America. I think the keys are sufficient funding, public willingness, and sense of environmental responsibility.
Ottawa is actually badly laid out for a transit system once you get out of the core, I won't bore you with why, but public transit is the single largest "service" charge in my municipal tax bill, more than police and fire combined IIRC. We have decent dedicated high-speed bus-onl
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In my experience, the key is that lots of people take the bus in places like the UK; gas is expensive, the cities are old & streets are narrow, and parking can be a real pain. They don't have the spread out suburbs of the US. So the buses have more of a representative sample of society. I know lots of car owners in the UK who take the bus regularly. In the US, most places, the bus is the last resort; I know I haven't been on one in the US for years, and neither have most of my friends, even though I liv
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It probably helps that in many place in Europe (as far as I know) "school buses" don't exist -- students who need to use a bus to get to school use a normal bus.
That means many parents have an interest in keeping the system safe and convenient, even if they hardly ever use it themselves.
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I know you're joking, but in a lot of large cities a car is unnecessary, and
That whooshing noise was the joke sailing above your head. This wasn't about cars, this was about some Forever Alone dude hacking a wifi router into some whack LCD display. Who cares what it displays? Ordinary people just go out and buy an LCD display and a dev board (like Arduino) for this kind of thing. They don't consult the Necronomicon and then call forth Digitus, The Terrible One (and his lesser known counterpart, The Terrible Zero), and ask him to use his dark powers to transmorgify a f***ing wifi ro
$20 a day expensive? (Score:2)
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In Sydney $20/day is the "early bird" rate for people who arrive before 9:30 and want to park all day. Casual hourly parking in the city during the day is much more expensive - anything from $10-20 per hour for a private car park, and $7/hr for government-metered street parking. In any case, parking your car costs more than any return bus or train ticket, before you even count the cost of fuel.
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You can only unlock the Achievement "I Put My Toaster On the Internet!" if it's using Arduino. Sorry man.
My toaster works fine and it's running Win 95 on a 486sx.
Say, does this sourdough taste exploited to you?
Hang on a minuite (Score:2, Funny)
Transit providers should sell these (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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that'll be $49.95 plus shipping.
$59.95 for the harder-to-read binary version.
$79.95 for the version that automatically shares on facebook the time you left your house for which bus number, along with stated destination and links to the profiles of facially-recognized facebook members seen leaving the house with you. add an additional $19.95 for the clock to automatically post pictures of you looking at said clock before
FYI (Score:4, Interesting)
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:FYI (Score:5, Funny)
The Victoria bus system is based on a "fuck you, we show up when we want... and fuck you" system.
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Ottawa and I know Vancouver now track buses via GPS. Ottawa's uses a text-message system with estimated times, while Vancouver actually updates locations on a map every 2 minutes. I prefer the Vancouver option--knowing how far away my bus is, I can much better guess when I've passed the point of no return and take my time getting to the stop for the next bus. The text option though is more accessible, i.e. better for people without smartphones.
Must be an American (Score:1)
Countries with a real investment in public transport have these at most bus stops.
Re:Must be an American (Score:4, Informative)
Countries with a real investment in public transport have these at most bus stops.
You exaggerate with "most", but they do exist at many stops in London. 2,500 according to the TfL website, out of 19,500 bus stops (!) used by 700 routes.
The interesting bit here is
1) The information is also on the web.
2) There's an API so people can access the data and use it themselves
3) He put it in a model bus
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In Portugal you can just text a specific number and you know how long it will take the few next buses to arrive.
Nothing to do with a Wifi router (Score:1)
Any tiny Linux box would work - here he's just using the 54G for the OS.
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here he's just using the 54G for the OS.
And the built-in wifi, and the serial port, and the fact that the hardware costs $15 on craigslist. :)
PopFile on the back burner? (Score:2)
I hope PopFile isn't suffering from this diversionary hack!
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You might be interested in this: http://traintimes.org.uk/map/ [traintimes.org.uk]
(I think that's the same thing you're going to do, but for trains in the UK.)
Been there, done that, got the bus transfer. (Score:2)
Montréal's ok (Score:1)