Transit Appliances: Open Data, Open Hardware and Open Source Software

A variety of smart phone apps have taken advantage of transit agency web services to provide real-time bus and rail arrival information. The Transit Appliance project is now creating a lightweight cloud infrastructure to support low-cost displays of this same kind of arrival information in fixed locations like building lobbies, coffee shops, retail establishments or even private homes.

A ‘phone home’ architecture allows inexpensive hardware to download configuration information from the cloud and interface directly with agency-provided open data web services, leveraging existing WiFi networks.

The combination of open data, open hardware, JavaScript and JSON create a disruptively low-cost approach to delivery of transit information.