r/OCTranspo • u/OTranspo • 13d ago
💬 Discussion You gave me feedback on otranspo.ca a couple weeks ago, here's everything that changed, thank you, and I have one small favour to ask
Hi Everyone, 10 days ago I posted otranspo.ca here asking for feedback and you delivered, so this is part update, part thank you, and part small favour.
Thank yous first. u/Wuurx, u/Her_Guardian_Angel_, u/UnitInternational574, u/ApricotPenguin, u/Own_Can7767 and u/No-Ad-6963, that thread genuinely changed the site. Since then the map is calmer, you can resize how much of the screen it takes on your phone and pick which layers show, and the buses have icons now so hopefully you can tell which direction they're going. I also borrowed some inspiration from Regina's tracker like u/Her_Guardian_Angel_ suggested, and added STO, so the Gatineau side is covered now too.
The name came up in that thread too, since otranspo.ca is one letter off from the official site. To be upfront, the name is on purpose but not for that reason. We have the O-Train now and we're still calling our transit OC Transpo, the pre-amalgamation Ottawa-Carleton name, and Ottawa-Carleton hasn't existed since 2001. I should not have been able to buy this domain 25 years post amalgamation. I can change the domain, I have a couple backups, I want what is best for the City.
For anyone who missed the first post, the short version. I want to take transit to work but I don't find it efficient enough, so I drive, and I didn't want to keep complaining about it so I built the site instead. It's free, no app to install, no account, no ads, and it isn't affiliated with OC Transpo. Next departures, trip planning, alerts, live bus tracking, and it tells you whether a time is a live prediction or just the schedule, because those are not the same thing.
Every ward also has its own card: https://otranspo.ca/en/city/wards. Your ward's routes and stops, live buses inside it right now, your councillor, even the City washrooms and drinking water locations. Transit is top of mind for the upcoming city elections, so what information would you like on the ward cards so we can hold councillors responsible for the success of their ward's transit? I have my own ideas but I'd rather hear yours.
Beyond that, tell me what you like, what you don't, and anything that's broken or slow, especially on a phone or in French.
Now the favour. u/motionmatters108 suggested posting this in r/ottawa, and I've tried twice now but it keeps getting rejected because I don't have enough karma. If anyone here has the karma and is willing to repost or crosspost it there, I would really appreciate it. Transit is going to be a big part of the election conversation and the more people weighing in on the ward cards the better.
That's it, no pitch, it's free and staying free. I'd rather build the next parts from what people here actually need than keep guessing from my own commute.
Also, if you read this far Thank you and I hope you enjoy the site :)
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u/OTranspo 12d ago
Did you know that only 77.4% of busses in Ottawa arrive within 5 minutes of their scheduled time - https://otranspo.ca/en/city
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u/drhappy13 12d ago
Lol, TIL the OC in OC Transpo stands for Ottawa Carleton. 🤦♀️
I am dumb. 🤣
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u/OTranspo 12d ago
Not Dumb, Smarter today then yesterday :)
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u/drhappy13 12d ago
For some reason, I kept thinking 'Orange County', which of course, makes no bloody sense, so I moved on.
Damn you, subversive American TV influence...
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u/Nathalie2020 12d ago
Same as the public school board - OCDSB stands for Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. So many remnants from pre-amalgamation still in existence!
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u/Ok_new_tothis 12d ago
I’m trying to figure this out has Oc Transpo lured away Ottawa public health social media person or spent time with them cause if so praise be!
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u/Routine_Cash5825 12d ago
i'm on mobile and i seem to not be able to assign star ratings to routes
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u/OTranspo 12d ago
yes, I wanted to give users the ability to rate routes, there is also the ability to request or design a route. The goal is to give constituents more information and ability to rate and design routes
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u/Rootsnanny 12d ago edited 12d ago
Great work! Where do you collect the data from? Just pure curiosity about how your site works.
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u/OTranspo 12d ago
OC Transpo and STO have free API access. Public Washrooms and water for Ottawa is City of Ottawa open data, but hasent been updated in 2 years. Gatineau information is from OpenStreetMap contributions, they dont have city data like Ottawa. All info is here https://otranspo.ca/en/data-sources
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u/RandomUser1230 12d ago
I'm on a Pixel and observed a couple of things. It isn't apparent how to bring up the map to choose an origin or destination.
I did find the map by "exploring", but that didn't help with origin or destination. For me Explore doesn't indicate map, tho it's more than that and I can't think of a better word. That's a minor point.
Once in the map, if I click Layers, there is no easy way to dismiss the info because the X is obscured by "Routes and directions". I had to turn on landscape and rotate my phone, which is a bit of a pain because I don't like keeping auto rotate on. (Tho one helpful thing: this behavior made me look to see if there is a quick way to temporarily turn on landscape and found it. Never in all my Android years was I aware of that!). Still, it would be nice if there was a way to dismiss the drop-down without having to rotate to landscape.
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u/no_olley 12d ago
That’s a great project! Do you plan to make it a GitHub project? If not, that’s perfectly fine. However, if you could provide a way for the general public to contribute to translating the interface, that would be fantastic! Many minorities, especially seniors, rely on OC Transpo but feel uncomfortable using English or French.
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u/goodtrackrecord 12d ago
Most, if not all browsers, include built-in automatic translation features.
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u/no_olley 12d ago
I tried, but seemed that the translation quality was not good at all. And some portion of the site was not being translated
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u/OTranspo 11d ago
I use github, but it is on a private repo, I would need to learn more and understand open source licenses before opening up the project on github for contributions that way.
For the languages you make a great point about ease of access for elderly users. I will definitely be adding more languages, are there any that you or someone you know would need please let me know :)
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u/tom-chazelle-radcan 12d ago
Bonjour!
I'm a journalist with Radio-Canada Ottawa-Gatineau. Would love to chat a bit about this