Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Where's that damn bus?

8. February 2006 • Josh Steichmann
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Oh, there it is

A Googlemaps repurposing allows those with internet access to again see where the busses are in real time, just like in the Blake! While the AATA formerly featured a similar application, it was removed (speculation: due to the fact that it was unstable and often inaccurate?). No matter.
Now… if there was only a dashboard widget…



  1. Anyone know if this is using real live data? If so, where are they getting it from?
       —J. Bruce Fields    Feb. 8 '06 - 06:38PM    #
  2. That’s what I want to know!
       —Scott T.    Feb. 8 '06 - 07:20PM    #
  3. I would guess that they’ve contacted AATA and are getting the same feed. Again, the AATA used to let you access a map on their website that showed realtime busses, but that seems to have gone away.
       —js    Feb. 8 '06 - 08:05PM    #
  4. Our team is building the whole system ourselves for the University… so some people are working on the actual GPS tracking.

    These are just University of Michigan busses.

    The data is live, but its not all there yet because we haven’t installed GPS in all the busses yet.

    -Kyle Mulka
    http://maps.kylemulka.com
       —Kyle Mulka    Feb. 8 '06 - 10:51PM    #
  5. “The data is live, but its not all there yet because we haven’t installed GPS in all the busses yet.”

    That’s interesting, thanks. Do you have any idea whether anyone’s tried to get real-time data from the AATA?
       —Bruce Fields    Feb. 9 '06 - 03:01AM    #
  6. Bruce: In the Blake transit center there used to be a monitor up that had all of the busses in 30-second sweeps (as close to real time as could be supported). I haven’t been inside Blake in a while (a year?) so I can’t say if it’s still up, but at least someone’s gotten the data before.
       —js    Feb. 9 '06 - 07:02AM    #

  7. “In the Blake transit center there used to be a monitor up that had all of the busses in 30-second sweeps (as close to real time as could be supported).”

    It’s still there, though I’ve never found it very useful.

    If we could get the data online somehow (and not just via some heavily restricted application), it’d be a lot more useful.


       —Bruce Fields    Feb. 13 '06 - 12:57AM    #