Why Simple Innovations Will (help) Change the World
I love mass transit and I love Google Maps. I love them both together. LOVE ‘EM. I love Google because they are all about beautiful information and lowered search costs. Google Maps promptly provides gobs of useful information, entertaining streetview images, great bus connection information and, now, it even has bike routing info! One major shortcoming for us mass transit advocates, however, is that Google Maps only knows when the buses are scheduled to arrive, not when they’ll actually arrive. While Trimet buses are pretty decent about on-time performance, these discrepancies are painfully apparent on cold, wet days such as Portland is known for. This is something I’ve often pondered: how can we make mass transit more appealing to more people? I think that reducing the wait time is a pretty good place to start, eh?
Waiting 10 extra minutes for a late bus is not terribly appealing but, as a pro-mass transit car owner, I’d really prefer to not drive to work when the bus can do it for me. What if, instead of waiting for an extra 10 minutes for a late bus, I could know precisely when the bus was actually going to show up? Meet PDXBus. A free iPhone app that, working with the GPS-based location of buses that Trimet themselves use, can tell you just when that (possibly tardy) #72 bus will be gracing your presence in all of its carbon-efficient, crossword-friendly awesomeness.
It’s simple, yet ingenious; clean, yet robust. The best thing is that PDXBus doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The buses already have GPS tracking in them. My phone already has GPS in it. Trimet already knows—and, while it leaves something to be desired, does share—the specifics of when the buses will actually arrive. All that PDXBus does is connect things that already exist: pertinent Trimet information with my location in a manner that is streamlined and intuitive.
PDXBus allows me to know that, instead of spending 10 curbside minutes losing my non-driving eco-resolve, I can sit in my warm, cozy tea shop and amble out right when I need to be there. The full implications of this are not insignificant: by reducing the lag time for picking up a bus, it effectively shortens the time required to make a bus-based trip, thus stripping away some of its disadvantage in relation to driving a car. In other words, it lowers one of the most common barriers to mass transit participation.
True, PDXBus isn’t groundbreaking, but that’s one of the things I like best about it: it demonstrates to all of us that we can make real sustainability inroads today. And all without depending upon congress, eco-coercion or cold fusion. It’s a simple product that might have big implications and it’s precisely these sorts of small, modest and immediately achievable advances that we need to champion. There are, of course, some huge environmental and social problems that require game-changing and adaptive solutions. But some of those will require dozens of years and billions of dollars. PDXBus enables everyday people to streamline their lives and reduce their carbon footprint. Today. For free.
Bravo.
What other simple, useful and accessible solutions have you come across? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
- Caleb
ps – PDXBus is on Twitter, too. And no, they’re not a client.
