It’s often a tricky balance for public agencies to strike when deciding whether to build a service in-house or to contract with a private company. So when Metro Transit paid for everyone in Minnesota to get premium access in the Transit App, we got curious about the terms of that arrangement. Turns out, there’s a lot of interesting data work going on in this partnership under-the-hood! Listen in on this chat with representatives from Metro Transit, MnDOT, and Transit App to learn more.
Links
Attributions
Our theme song is Tanz den Dobberstein, and our interstitial song is Puck’s Blues. Both tracks used by permission of their creator, Erik Brandt. Find out more about his band, The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, on their website.
This episode was hosted and edited by Ian R Buck and was produced and transcribed by Parker Seaman aka Strongthany. Many thanks to Laura Matson, Kathy Schultz, and Stephen Miller for coming on the show! We’re always looking to feature new voices on the show, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected].
Transcript
[00:00:00] Laura: I don’t want to you know show off but if I showed you transit app on my phone you could see it because I have access to the test. You have the special insider program. I know I know it really could be you know within the next week or two that this is rolled out publicly.
[00:00:20] Ian: Welcome to the Streets.mn podcast the show where we highlight how transportation and land can make our communities better places. Coming to you from beautiful Uptown Minneapolis Minnesota I am your host Ian R. Buck. A few episodes ago you heard us discussing OpenStreetMap and one of our favorite apps that uses the data is the Transit app. The company behind it recently partnered with Metro Transit and MnDOT to bring the app’s premium features to every user in Minnesota. So we sat down with representatives from each agency I’m Laura Mattson. I use she her pronouns. I’m the manager of data and business systems in the customer experience department at Metro Transit.
[00:01:03] Kathy: My name is Kathy Schultz. I am the transit technology program manager with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
[00:01:08] Stephen: I’m Stephen Miller. I am the policy lead at the Transit app.
[00:01:14] Ian: This episode was produced by Parker Seaman. So Parker why don’t you tell us what got you interested in this topic?
[00:01:21] Parker: For sure my dissertation research is into transit information specifically in ridership tracking and I thought this would be a interesting conversation to have to kind of get some more insight into how Transit app works when it’s collaborating with different agencies because we’re not the first one you guys have collaborated with for this if I believe correctly which then brings up the the question of when something like this is getting started like who’s going to who first are you going out different agencies and talking to them and saying hey we have this thing that we work on think that we do or is are the the Metro Transit or MnDOT come out first and go hey Transit app I like what you guys are doing can we workout something here?
[00:02:05] Stephen: So the the basis of everything is fundamentally open data and data standards before we get to any business relationship it’s really about the data right so Transit data there’s a format called GTFS and all Transit agencies provide this information publicly available not just to Transit app but to Google Maps, Apple Maps whoever wants to to create a navigation tool and so that’s really where starts and we integrate that data there’s a whole history of GTFS and related data specifications I’m sure we can get into but we integrate that data at the Transit app and then kind of go out there in the market right and offer what we think is the best app to riders so you know we we build a user base independently and that’s what I think gets us on the radar of the public authorities we we work with them already on data issues when there’s let’s say an error in data or you know we have a question about something a change that they’ve made in their GTFS we’re already in touch with the agencies oftentimes we’re responding to an RFP that that Transit agencies put out there they have identified the need something and then go out to the to the market and pick among various companies usually that that’s how it goes so we keep an eagle eye out for what Transit agencies are asking for and their RFPs you know but there’s there’s all sorts you know that the Transit world is is a small one and there’s all sorts of discussions about okay well here’s what we offer and okay here’s what you’re interested in looking at and it’s it’s a constantly evolving space but we’re usually responding to the inquiry from a from an agency
[00:04:08] Ian: yeah
[00:04:07] Parker: so Laura was that what you had on your end with getting started with this was putting out a RFP for a collaboration like that
[00:04:17] Laura: no in this case it wasn’t I would echo what Steven said that we had a long-standing relationship collaborating on data quality issues or data issues and also working together to advance the GTFS the specification to cover new new data formats to cover more cases or operational experiences in the Transit app our collaborators at Transit app are very active and leading in that space I would say was our primary relationship with them I don’t know for at least the last 10 years and there’s been increasing interest within Metro Transit specifically around how can we improve the customer experience and how can we hear more directly from customers when they’re riding how things are going and so Transit offered us a free trial of subscribing to this rate my feature and we found that it was a economical and useful way to hear directly from riders we have lots of engagement strategies we do our own surveys but we didn’t have anything like rate my ride that you knew a rider was actually on the bus they were actually taking this trip and they were telling you is the vehicle clean or not it has this is the stop clean or not was the bus on time and we thought it was a really rich data set and so figured out this partnership this was a unique offering in the market so it wasn’t actually through an RFP it was a they call it a sole source and part of it so for Metro Transit we subscribe to rate my ride and then we want people to answer the questions we want to meet riders where at so we also unlocked Royale in the region as part of that partnership.
[00:06:21] Ian: So Stephen that kind of jumps me to the question about like this you know these rate my ride surveys that you know people have the opportunity to answer while they are riding a bus is that are those questions that pop up only in regions where you have where Transit app has that relationship with the Transit agency for that data sharing or are you collecting that data regardless and then that’s an enticing like hey come and partner with us so we can share this data with you.
[00:06:52] Stephen: So we have different types of questions that we ask in different places we have what we call global questions which are asked everywhere and then we have custom questions which are can be added by an agency that we’re partnering with so just to give some context for what rate my ride is in the Transit app there’s a feature called Go which is a step-by-step navigator so it’ll tell you when to leave the house it’ll tell you when your stop is coming up on the bus or the train and while you’re using Go you are also crowdsourcing information about your Transit ride automatically even without answering questions once the app detects that you’re onboard a Transit vehicle we then supplement that real-time location of that user into the data provided by the Transit agency so that way the location information for that particular vehicle for that particular trip is updated second by second right so there’s along with that there’s a leaderboard to see you know how many people you’ve helped on each given trip you can compete to be the best on your line but also we pose these rate my ride questions because we could detect like Laura was saying you know you’re at the stop you’re onboard this specific trip and so those questions are universal they’re asked everywhere top line results are shared back in the app for a certain number of questions so for example we ask did the bus come when you expected it to and those results are shared out on a line by line basis in the similarly we ask you know on a rating of one to five stars how would you rate your trip and those are shared back out in the app we ask other questions because it allows a comparison between different Transit agencies which can be useful and then there’s these additional questions that Transit agencies can ask some of which we have kind of tested elsewhere and used already but we don’t want to deploy everywhere all the time we only want to deploy them when they’re useful to the Transit agency and then other questions which are entirely custom where the Transit agency works with us to kind of craft what that question looks like
[00:09:13] Ian: and then Laura how does Metro Transit use that the data that Transit is sharing with you through through those sources
[00:09:21] Laura: so it’s still very much a work in progress we’re still in first year of this partnership so a lot of the work we’ve done so far is just kind of figuring out when is this a good mechanism for gathering customer feedback how does it work with other data we’re gathering so kind of establishing that baseline but also looking for hot spots looking for places like trends like did the cleanliness on this route change over a certain amount of time should we have people go take a look at it we’ve been referring to it internally as like a sniffer like is there something that we should go investigate because customers are reporting oh there’s been a lot of trash at this one of the custom questions that we just recently deployed is around snow removal and trying to understand you know Metro Transit clears snow from a lot of stops and a lot of stations but we also have a lot of stops and stations that depend on nearby property owners for snow removal so trying to understand is that a barrier are there places that that seems to be impeding transit access and it’s still pretty exploratory it’s not you know oh based on the answers to this we’re going to do this but it’s a useful input into the broader conversation
[00:10:44] Ian: I was wondering what had triggered the snow questions popping up I was like does the app just like monitor the weather in the area and kind of like when it gets cold enough
[00:10:55] Stephen: so the snow question actually came originally from Montreal where we are headquartered of course it snows a lot in Montreal as well and out of just pure curiosity we launched a question in the app just locally after a snowstorm and then we took that data and then a whole blog post to identify because in Montreal snow clearance at bus stops is done borough by borough the city is made up of different boroughs and so we did an analysis to look at okay which borough is does the best at snow clearance at its bus stops and we wrote up a whole blog post it got written up by the local press and it was it was both interesting and useful to riders right because not having having a stop covered in snow you know days weeks even after snowfall is just you know horrible so we then started working with other transit agencies about you know is this an issue for you do you want to look into this and the app does not detect the weather automatically we’ve had discussions internally about how we do this if it’s worth it what do we do and instead the way we decided to ask it is there snow on the ground and if yes then it asks about the bus stop
[00:12:15] Ian: there you go there you go i have noticed that for for me as as an individual user my attitude towards some of the questions changes depending on like what the weather is right like when when um when the app asks me how clean is this bus and i’m like you know i look at the ground and i’m like well it just snowed and so everybody’s tracking in snow and so there’s a lot of dirt and grime here but like i kind of expect that and so that’s fine
[00:12:45] Parker: right like a bus with a bunch of salty floors in winter it’s like that’s expected
[00:12:52] Ian: right right
[00:12:53] Parker: I wouldn’t expect them to mop at every end of every line
[00:12:58] Laura: i will say that the the cleanliness of vehicles did go down in december and the internal i mean maybe there was something broader going on just like salty dirty snow but at the same time i can’t really say that my bus is spotless if it is covered in in grime that little spotless icon it’s just too perfect for what i’m seeing with my eyeballs
[00:13:23] Stephen: it’s very much a kind of evolutionary progress for for this feature and how it works this exact question is something that we are are kind of wrestling with right now is and and we work with transit agencies not just metro transit but others to say okay well how can we frame these questions as specifically and as usefully as we can should we be asking riders if the inside of the bus is spotless is spotless actually the standard we want riders to judge things by or is it more about how does this does this bus need to be cleaned in which case it might you might not say spotless but you might say actually no it’s fine.
[00:14:05] Ian: meets expectations
[00:14:06] Stephen: It’s two different questions yeah exactly exactly yeah
[00:14:09] Parker: for metro transit Laura what is like is is the transit app a decent way to be reporting stuff like that like when you get questions from Go or should riders kind of use the contact us part of the metro transit.org website for getting a quicker response or more formal response preferred way there?
[00:14:29] Laura: great question you should definitely contact us directly like if you see a vehicle or a stop in need of attention and you can submit a form at metro transit.org or call the 612-373-3333 number we follow up on every direct customer contact it gets routed quickly transit app at this point is more used for seeing like overall trends and places to investigate so contact us directly
[00:15:01] Parker: cool
[00:15:02] Stephen: i would i would just add in the transit app when you hit the contact us button we ask a series of questions to determine is the issue you want to reach out about something that we can address as an app or is it something that really should be directed to metro transit and if it is we send you to that contact form directly
[00:15:25] Ian: nice. data partnership is one aspect of this but obviously like every user in the metro transit system you know got royal for for free so what is like the the monetary relationship in this partnership like who’s paying whom how is that all working is it a is it a flat fee per user basis what are we talking
[00:15:48] Laura: so the metro transit contract with transit app is an annual fee regardless of the number of users and it’s about a hundred thousand per year for unlocking royale and about a hundred thousand a year for subscribing to the rate my ride and there are some like nice features that come with it we can post banner ads which have been an way to reach riders about like big upcoming service changes or requesting participation or feedback in something they also get like in kind advertising so that’s why you see some like transit app promos on buses and at train platforms things like that
[00:16:33] Parker: Before that contract was was laid out and before this was announced like how long was was in the works before uh started to be announced to the public
[00:16:41] Laura: that’s a good question the um as i mentioned previously there we did do a trial period where transit app gave us access to all the rate my ride data so we were able to validate that it was worth the investment um and i think that specifically um plus going through our procurement and due diligence there probably took about six months i will say the MNDoT partnership is separate also so like metro transits partnership like i mentioned is sort of focused on these two components um but the MNDoT partnership is is very cool so kathy should also talk about that because that’s industry leading stuff
[00:17:25] Ian: yeah that was going to be our next question i remember when um you know the the transit app all of a sudden became an option for being able to plan trips from one city in minnesota to another and and there was a big announcement about like yeah jefferson lines and you know several other agencies were going to start appearing in the transit app when they previously had not so so yeah kathy i guess you get to speak on that now what was the history there there
[00:17:55] Kathy: was a couple things partly is looking at the data standards and looking at getting information available to the traveling public for transit um statewide um and understanding that our rural transit system providers um typically had um struggles with trying to get that that that data standard uh to a point where information was available whether you were in Duluth or moorhead or Bimidji in rochester you know and how do you travel and and understanding too that the public doesn’t you know want to just travel within the twin cities or within large metropolitan areas they want to be able to see and understand um how to get information on transportation and be able to um find it and use it and so it started off with two grants that we received back in 2020 from federal transit administration as well as some covid funding um to look at putting 12 agencies on the table to say let’s get their data standard up and running um let’s work with them um to get information out to the public and then work on the marketing and the public to understand as well too how to use the app um and what it looks like
[00:19:22] Ian: so 12 agencies that would be that’s more than just the fixed route systems that we have in the state right i think we only have like five metro areas in the state that have fixed route let’s delve into uh a little bit of the like on-demand stuff how do we be able to like display that kind of thing in an app like the transit app?
[00:19:42] Stephen: so integrating these demand response systems into uh the transit app is uh like honestly a very very interesting project so back at the beginning of the of the podcast i was talking about gtfs over time an extension was added to gtfs called gtfs flex and gtfs flex is uh really for these uh demand response or deviated fixed route services so for example you have services where it runs along a fixed route but then depending on a user calling in advance or somebody on board the bus it will deviate off that fixed route and take them to a their destination within a certain radius of that line the other thing to keep in mind that’s important is gtfs has two components one is for static information that is the schedules and maps of where service is operating and then the other is for real-time information the update of where is the bus where when is it coming three two one minutes gtfs flex is really on the static side of the equation so showing you where services are available not necessarily the real-time information about that services transit was the first and remains the first mobile app to integrate gtfs flex and our first deployment was with minnesota so it was it was really as laura said earlier it is kind of industry-leading stuff to get these types of services which traditionally have been operated on a pen and pad and a phone right getting them into trip planning services and apps so that people who are using their smartphones can know actually i can take this trip oftentimes it’s a piece of paper at the supermarket that says you know you know to to get the dialer ride service call this number right and so making sure that that is is legible and that the world reflects the actual world is a great a great step forward and i think minnesota DoT really should get all of the praise because it deserves it for doing something that most other states do not which is providing that level of technical assistance to its rural transit agencies so when I think about like the the workflow from a user’s perspective of using like a on-demand transit service you know I’m like okay i look in on the map to see like what are the boundaries of the service area you know i input like my destination and my starting point which is probably my current location right so it needs GPS data from my own phone and then once i request a ride it shows me like okay here’s the little vehicle that’s going to come pick you up it’s going towards you on the map and then you know when you it picks you up and then you you know have a time estimate for how long it’s going to take to get to your destination but you know maybe we’ll make other stops along the way like how many how many of those different pieces that i just named does gtfs flex like take into account
[00:23:05] Stephen: the first half of that equation. so this the the static information is about what is the service available the real time information which is the second half of what you described is where is the vehicle when is it coming to pick me up so that first half of uh you know i enter my my origin my destination and i get back here’s what the services are that are available here’s the schedules that they operate on and also here is how you can reserve and request that service so when i was saying MNDoT is doing something that most states aren’t doing i i should actually edit that MNDoT is doing something that no state is doing right they are the first to get this kind of static service information about these demand response services on the digital map that said there is a second data standard for demand response transit so we were talking about gtfs which exists for buses and trains gbfs which i have to do a little aside here uh is for bike share car share and scooters but is the uh the brainchild of a minnesotan of mitch vars uh formerly of nice ride so i’ve got a shout out mitch and minnesota um and then there’s gofs uh which is much more recent it’s for uh kind of micro transit on-demand transit uh it’s just getting its legs underneath it but it does have that real-time information to say okay uh you know you can expect to pick up in five minutes for example uh and that’s that’s less for these gofs is less for these um dial-a-ride services and more typically for taxi ride hail kind of on-demand micro transit
[00:25:00] Ian: Kathy i have a follow-up question for you like um you know when i think about some of these uh smaller scale or not smaller scale but like like rural transit agencies that don’t have as many resources on their own and probably don’t have like an IT person on staff you know to set up and maintain um you know these gtfs uh uh feeds and you know the the server infrastructure and everything how much support is mndot giving to these various different transit agencies um to be able to like run all of this
[00:25:33] Kathy: well the first thing that we’re doing right now is actually talking with them um and that’s part of my role at mndot is to kind of understand where they’re at at least at a base um and then kind of moving forward looking at how do we get them to a standard that we need to have them at um so through that you know we’re looking at uh funding about opportunities for the systems to be able to apply for money funding for um upgrading some of their scheduling dispatching software being able to have um caddy vl and information on the buses um a lot of the vehicles that we within our rural communities aren’t tracked um they don’t have um um a gps you know kind of like a you know as you were saying you know that that component of seeing the vehicle kind of go down the road and say oh here he is a lot of our rural systems you know our drivers get a manifest in the morning that say you know pick up person a take them to place b and in between it might be 30 miles it might be across the county it might be into another county and that vehicle isn’t necessarily being tracked but but people know where i mean dispatch knows where they’re at um and so that component is having to be brought into the systems as well too and so those are things that MNDoT’s looking at funding um as we’re kind of moving things forward and moving them into the future to be able to connect to a to be able to have that next resource but um yeah we’re in the whole walking before running um mode as well too because we want success in this because we do have other states that are looking at minnesota um i have uh partners and colleagues in michigan who um i regularly talk to on on you know on calls to say how are you doing this how does how do we get this work as well too um because they see the value they see the value and having that information available statewide and not just in the metropolitan areas yeah
[00:27:53] Ian: dear listener this is ian from the future with some very exciting news they have indeed rolled out metro micro information in the transit app so it works exactly as steven describes you can see the service area boundaries and it will give you an estimate for a trip from one spot to another but to book a trip it shows you a button that sends you over to the metro micro app so you heard it here folks
[00:28:18] Parker: i’ve also heard talk of metro transit updating their payment system for paying for fares for all the different transit vehicles available and i’ve heard i know that in some areas that you can purchase uh your fare through the transit app um so will the fare system update of that metro transit is doing allow us to pay for fares in the transit app is something like that in the works laura?
[00:28:47] Laura: it’s not it hasn’t been decided yet it’s still to be determined um when we did the last rfp for um the ticketing app which is the like metro transit app currently it’s very focused on ticketing it didn’t make sense to enable ticketing within transit but that could change as we transition into a more open payment system
[00:29:12] Stephen: and just to provide some context on the transit app side too metro transit uses a company called token for its mobile ticketing which we do integrate and in fact this is the same company that MNDoT uses for rural agencies that do mobile ticketing but as laura mentioned you know with the advent of contactless open payments where you can tap a credit or debit card on board the bus we are able to integrate that into the app very easily and seamlessly the transit app will show a contactless button that when you tap it automatically goes to your apple wallet or google wallet
[00:29:56] Ian: nice
[00:29:56] Parker: awesome
[00:29:57] Ian: what surprises have come from this partnership like what are some and how are these discoveries informing our our decisions going forward
[00:30:06] Kathy: You know understanding what the landscape is you know i mean ultimately um you know 39 transit systems in state of Minnesota um are going to be available for public information you know as a as a transit user you know who travels around the state and the country it’s huge um and it’s a big lift um and so i think that you know we’ve we’ve got a great team in um our providers um who are on the street who are working to get buses out we have a great relationship with the transit app staff as well with the you know optibus and cambridge systematics as well who are helping with that back end gtfs finessing information working on you know bringing this out to the to the country and saying look what we’re doing you know why don’t you come along and let’s build something great together
[00:31:04] Laura: i think like i said earlier we’re still kind of exploring what data can do for us um but it has been really nice to see all of the positive feedback about unlocking royale i mean part of the goal of the partnership is to meet riders where they are and we’re not in the business of selling app downloads or clicks we’re in the business of getting people from point a to point b and if the public or our riders want to use a app making it easier to do that is like part of providing the service and so i’d say that has been a a really nice surprise you don’t always get a lot of positive feedback but this has been a popular one
[00:31:51] Stephen: i would just add from our side and this applies both to metro transit and to MNDoT it is uh very nice to have partners who challenge you to push the limits a bit which is really really great right because uh you know there could be a transit agency that’s like great you know royale great we’ll take it cool and then that’s the end of the conversation and that’s actually not that interesting from our perspective right it’s much more interesting to have a a state dot that says we want to be the first to digitize and our our statewide rural transit networks it’s much more interesting to have a transit agency in a major metropolitan area like the twin cities say okay we want to figure out what are the things we can ask of riders how can we use the data in a way that’s that’s useful and interesting another great example is with MNDoT because the the transit app traditionally is used for local travel right it’s used for point to point within a city or a region you know doing these long distance trips you know our our trip planner historically had a in terms of the distance because you know it takes additional computing power and we wanted to to limit those edge cases that’s no longer an edge case necessarily when you’re going between cities using jefferson lines so how you know we had to make changes to the way our trip planner and the app worked and pushed that limit up and so it required us to kind of make some technological advances on our side that ended up being useful not just in minnesota but you know in lots of other regions so discovering those challenges that come up as you do a project with partners and then figuring out ways to solve them is what’s frankly most interesting from our perspective
[00:33:48] Parker: which then makes me wonder when um creating a a relationship like this and evaluating how to continue pushing forward how does metro transit evaluate when it is worthwhile to outsource like work like this to a private company versus developing something in-house
[00:34:09] Laura: yeah that’s a good question um i would say we are like we’re continuing to invest in our website we just rolled out a bunch of improvements to the maps on the website and we’ll be implementing a new trip planner in the coming year that also integrates on-demand service and so i don’t see it as like an either or um but in this case you know transit app provides a service that’s valuable to metro transit that’s valuable to our riders it’s more cost effective to like partner on this rather than trying to develop and maintain a go feature with these custom questions and the data collection um like it just makes more sense like financially and logistically and basically every other way to pursue this partnership than to try to do exactly what transit app is doing ourselves
[00:35:04] Ian: right and it like thinking about it from a user’s perspective it is desirable to me to have one app that i can use that works in the twin cities and also in chicago and also in like colomb county washington right you know where um no matter where i go like i know that i don’t have to go and google like that particular transit agency to figure out what app they have made you know etc etc so it’s there’s always kind of a tension between like you know public data and keeping it owned by the public but then also like you know is that actually the best thing for all of the people who are going to be using these systems um you know to have like all different cities and states and everything like taking all these different approaches and yeah knowing that like we’re we’re we’re doing this partnership with a private company but a private company that is like focused on open data and you know and and pushing those boundaries um is like i i mean obviously everybody’s going to have their own like takes on on whether private public partnerships are like appropriate but you know to me this seems like a good approach where it’s like you know we’re we’re not just giving everything away to a black hole and then like hoping that we get good things out of it Stephi would i would add i would say to that ian like i think that that’s correct but the way that that happens is because the relationship is based around these kind of open standards right it we couldn’t exist without gtfs right as an app we would exist without the standard and the gtfs data is publicly available open data in a standardized format and then we’re able to build things on top of that and then also share things back out using these standard formats um so to use a really concrete example these rate my ride questions we ask is there a shelter at the stop is there a bench uh is there a bike rack we built a uh a module in our our web dashboard for transit agencies we call it transit terminal and in that module we take all the results that we’re getting from those questions and share it back with agencies to say here’s where app users has have identified benches shelters bike racks etc that’s all well and good but we want to be able to share that out in a way that is itself standardized so that agencies can include that information in their own data sets right and so metro transit to their great credit kind of pushed the ball forward by adding uh fields to their we’re going to get technical stops txt file in gtfs for these types of amenities and that prompted a discussion among other transit agencies the mbta in boston also has a different way of sharing this type of information about stop amenities so then it started a conversation okay can we standardize how we share this information so that different transit agencies can share it so that transit app can both share it and uh you know receive that information uh for display to users and so uh you know very soon there’s going to be a discussion kicked off officially in the gtfs community of okay here’s a proposal for how we can do that building on the work that metro transit has done building on the work that transit app has done building on the work that other agencies like mbta have done and how do we create this kind of standardized way of doing it the the result of that is that it it doesn’t it it prevents anyone from being locked into a black hole like you said you know you’re not stuck with one company that is in charge of everything you’re actually you have this kind of open competitive space where different companies can can compete to be the best and different agencies can come up with new and better ways of doing things um so now
[00:39:30] Ian: and this isn’t to say that like the the transit app isn’t trying to find competitive advantages for yourself like you know i am very aware when i’m using the app that like yeah i’m doing go mode because i want other users of the transit app to have better real-time you know bus estimates but i also i am very aware that like that data is only being shown to other users of this particular app and it’s not being shared back with like the agencies or you know back with other apps and everything and you know and there’s of course like a bunch of you know user privacy that’s like tied up in that as well you know you don’t like so you know it’s there’s a give and take to everything right yeah
[00:40:13] Stephen: yes exactly there is definitely right any public company has to figure out a way to keep its head above water and be profitable and grow as a company but i think what what makes the public transit field so interesting is that because it is such a give and take and a balance between the public operators the public agencies and the private companies the terms of engagement are i think because they are built around these standards and when they are built around these standards help make sure that the private interests in the space can survive and thrive but not choke off the public interest
[00:40:55] Ian: yeah
[00:40:56] Parker: they serve as supporting rather than overtaking
[00:41:00] Stephen: exactly exactly
[00:41:02] Laura: i will say from like a metro transit perspective like having this open data standard i mean it’s just really strategic because it leaves our options open that we include like does this stop have a shelter amenity information because all of our internal tools like the trip planner at metro transit dot org or the staff in the contact center use is also consuming gtfs data and that was like very strategic seeing like we know third-party apps are really popular we know people are using google and apple and transit app and many others we want all of our eyes on the same data so if we rebuild our internal tools to be using gtfs data that means we have better data quality regardless of the app that customers are using and we’re never going to have like the ui ux design team that google maps has but we can do our best and we can make sure options are available to riders
[00:42:09] Parker: yeah there’s and going off what you said of using open standards there is a lot of value there of being able to implement something like that just because it’s it’s open is for anybody to use it’s just a lot of advantages of that similarly when a few episodes ago we worked or we talked about open street map and the benefits of having a very open mapping utility and the advantages of it being that data being available for anybody to build whatever they want on top of that and it’s my understanding that transit app does use open street map data for some of their map data so when looking at open or looking at the transit app and seeing how the lines of the bus stops are what is the overlap between how open street map data and gtfs feeds work with aligning like bus stops or kind of other information i just kind of want to talk on how transit app uses osm data as a whole
[00:43:17] Stephen: yes excellent question so osm is a big part of the app and we use it in a few discrete areas so when you plan a trip with the transit app and you go from a to b there’s a transit leg but then there’s the walking leg to the transit stop and from the transit stop we we have our own trip planning engine that we built but that engine uses the paths from open street map so we can know where sidewalks are and paths are that people can walk to and from transit so updating and we also when we get an error like for example someone will a user will say this trip plan makes no sense it’s telling me to walk you know from here to there to get to this bus stop that’s actually across the street that’s usually an osm error and so we’ll go in look it up and say oh yeah that is an osm error and we’ll update osm so that we and others have the correct info we also use osm for our bike routing which is something we launched last year gosh last year yeah and our bike routing uses osm to know where the bike paths bike lanes and streets are and then our own trip planner engine will then use that to come up with routes that prioritize safety and then mark where protected lanes are where greenways are and then also identify potential high traffic streets so you know before you you get to them that it might be a potentially risky area we’re very proud of our bike directions safety focused bike directions is not something that the the giants of the field like google maps have traditionally focused on so
[00:45:02] Ian: and it’s not the transit app even like even um other like bike specific you know navigation apps that use osm data like hardly any of them will highlight the way the transit app does like yeah when am i going to be on a fully separated bike lane and you know like i was so blown away when when you like launched that feature and i was like wait a minute this is actually like better than any other tool that i’ve ever used which is a wild thing to like to to get right on the very first try well it took it it took a lot of effort internally and testing to get to that point um as you might imagine uh obviously at transit we are transit riders but we are also bike riders and so uh we were kind of able to to test it quite a bit in our our real lives and we also shared it with folks at different cities like bike programs in different cities to say hey we’re planning this new feature could you you know you are the local expert in your city would you be able to give it a test and tell us if we’re what we’re getting right what we’re getting wrong and that helped us identify uh one osm errors you know if it’s secondly it helped us identify oh okay maybe there’s a tweak we should be making to our trip planning engine one of the things we found early on is that we were telling people to make a lot of turns uh because we were trying to prioritize safer streets uh and uh just from a user perspective it was like this is too many turns this is unrealistic i’m going to miss one i’m going to forget it it’s not helpful and so then we adjusted accordingly based on feedback
[00:46:53] Ian: you also added like not just walking to and from transit stops but also like having bike as as a um um travel mode you know on either end of like a bus route uh is is there any particular thing that determines whether that’s going to pop up um because it’s you know it doesn’t show up for every single like route that i try
[00:47:17] Stephen: yes that’s a great question so uh there’s a few different factors here i’ll start with the um the transit app side of the equation and then i’ll go to the kind of transit agency side of the equation so we for our trip planner we tend to prioritize biking to and from routes that are generally high frequency and high speed so that tends to be light rail routes or express bus routes where the advantage you get of going on board public transit in terms of speed and frequency is greater than what you would get from maybe doing a bike trip the whole way right because those of us who bike know biking is you know often quite time competitive for a certain range of distances and so for that reason we prioritize kind of higher speed transit lines that also helps reduce the load on our trip planning engine so it’s not crunching every possible combination but the ones that would be the most useful the second half of the equation is there’s an option in the app to take your bike at the first leg and at the last leg of the trip so from your origin and to your destination you could switch it it only goes from your origin to the transit and then you leave your bike at a station let’s say and then take transit the rest of the way without your bike the default setting in the us for the app is bikes on both ends because it is rarer for people to bike to a train station in the us park it at the train station and then commute to the center city whereas if you’re in let’s say the netherlands that’s very common right so that’s why the default is different in the us in order to know if you can take a bike on public transit there is a field that agencies can fill out in their gtfs called bikes allowed and it just says basically yes you can bring a bike on this transit trip because not that’s not possible on every transit trip but most agencies in most places have racks on the front of their buses they allow bikes on board certainly at most times of day for most agencies and so communicating that through your gtfs allows us to know yes we can have someone take a bike on board and then omplete the rest of the trip on bike
[00:49:50] Ian: nice
[00:49:51] Laura: time to shout out that in the transit app riders choice awards metro transit came in first in the riders most likely to also go by bike scooter car share so and congrats to a very multimodal region
[00:50:07] Ian: there we go. steven you mentioned that you know your team will go and update like open street map data if you you know find out that like oh hey there’s some there’s some errors in that data set that that you know need to be addressed and obviously like you know any end user can also update open street map data and that will be reflected in the transit app how often are you refreshing you know your your pool of open street map data because sometimes you know it can be disheartening for an osm editor to like you know get started edit some stuff and then it never sees the light of day for months and months
[00:50:47] Stephen: so we update maximum every couple of days every few days so if you make an edit by the end of the week it should appear in the app at the very latest so the way the app works on the back end is when you open the transit app we download information for not only your transit agency that is the static gtfs schedules but also the osm data if you have a data connection we download that and then all of that is then available offline so if you lose connection for any reason you can continue to use the transit app both for bike directions walking directions and public transit schedules
[00:51:35] Ian: ian from the future here again we asked steven what osm editor his team uses and he had to get back to us after the recording they do use the default id editor what other data sources are you using for like place names for example like i’ve noticed that that like when i enter a place name into the search field that oftentimes like the stuff that pops up doesn’t match up with what is listed in open street map
[00:52:03] Stephen: that’s right so for placemarks we use google on android and we use apple maps on ios so when you were searching a destination we use the apis from each of them respectively interesting on the platform
[00:52:19] Parker: is that based on the app installed on your phone or just the services that the phone is connected to
[00:52:25] Stephen: that should be based on your os
[00:52:29] Parker: okay
[00:52:30] Ian: okay so that would be yeah so like google play services would provide whatever location yada yada okay interesting
[00:52:37] Parker: so as we talked about here there’s a lot of very useful back and forth between metro transit and MNDoT and transit app on what information is being shared what kind of things are being developed and continue to improve the systems for pretty much everybody involved in the process of having this connection working on all this sort of stuff i’d like to know how has this greater access to information further development informed future decisions at you know all of the agencies involved and like what has that led to an understanding for what’s next for everybody involved
[00:53:16] Laura: so you mentioned on-demand service discovery and direct booking is coming soon another thing that we’re really excited about is called trip modifications or real-time detours and as a transit rider and even somebody who works at metro transit detours really confusing really disorienting it’s really hard to parse alerts especially if you’re not able to read english well and decipher transit jargon well and so trip modifications is a real-time format for specifying like detour shapes and we’re working with some operations software providers to be able to publish this data transit app again being kind of on the leading edge of this already can consume it and as a royal partner we’ll be able to make this available to users in the region so anticipating the first half of this year hopefully in time for construction and special events season better data will be available to riders through this open data format
[00:54:33] Kathy: so on the min dot side we just rolled out six transit agencies the first of the year various places throughout the state and getting them on the the platform for the transit app we’re currently working with arrowhead which is one of our larger transit providers in the state covering i think it’s 10 or 11 counties so up in that northeast corner area as well as gulmardi which is our autonomous vehicle that’s up in grand rapids you know getting their information on the transit app and then we have another 15 transit agencies that are on the schedule for later this summer and end of the fall so ultimately for MNDoT you know we’ll have most if not all of our transit systems i don’t want to jinx myself by january 1 of 2027 and so barring issues with data issues with you know you know best laid out plans you know how is it is but then also MMDoT will be looking at really marketing and providing marketing support to our transit agencies as understanding that our transit systems have small staffs you know in limited it technology but also the the marketing staffs behind it so how do we get it so that it’s kind of a statewide message you know the transit app is available tokens available in markets for payments it’s one platform to help out but then also too on the website we have our mn transit planner dot com website as well to you know be able to get on you know a laptop or tablet and be able to find that information even before you get on your app as well too so a couple different platforms and movement but we’re excited for 2026 with the state and movements project along
[00:56:34] Stephen: yeah so i mean i mentioned earlier the kind of long distance trip planning was something that really pushed us thanks to MNDoT and its needs and that’s something that’s useful for transit not just in minnesota right but ontario is restarting its northlander train which requires long distance trip planning we are expanding quite a bit in france and the sncf you know and its kind of train service requires a longer distance so for us it’s actually been really interesting and great to push the app forward in in new ways and for metro transit you know on the rate my ride side of the equation we are working to put more and more information into transit terminal so that we can share more easily with transit agencies what riders are saying and what’s happening as opposed to just kind of sharing a export of a csv file with a bunch of responses right having a dashboard that you can use to to navigate that data and eventually making a version of that kind of more open to the public right we already share some of that information through the app with what people are saying but you know our goal is to make transit terminal a useful kind of web format for the information that’s coming through transit app so i think that that’ll be a thing to kind of keep your eyes on going forward
[00:58:14] Ian: nice well steven kathy laura thank you so much for coming on the show
[00:58:19] Laura: wow thank you so much for having us and for all of your interest and support and for riding with us thanks for riding with us
[00:58:26] Stephen: thank you so much
[00:58:29] Ian: And thank you joining us for this episode of the Streets.mn Podcast. The show is released under a creative comments attribution non-commercial non-derivative license, so feel free to republish the episode as long as you are not altering it and you are not profiting from it. The music in this episode is by Erik Brant and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet. This episode was hosted and edited by me Ian R Buck and was produced and transcribed by Parker Seaman aka Strongthany. Thanks to our Mastodon followers Pine, Streetmeme, m04, and Ang for sending in questions for us to ask. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the Streets.mn Podcast so if you have ideas for future episodes drop us a line at [[email protected]]. Streets.mn is a community publication and relies on contributions from audience members like you; if you can make a one-time or recurring donation you can find more information about doing so at [https://streets.mn/donate]. Find other listeners and discuss this episode on your favorite social media platform using the hashtag #StreetsMNPodcast. Until next time, take care.