"Text My Bus MIA" is an SMS system that enables the user to text the ID number of his or her bus stop and receive a message with upcoming bus times for that stop. The goal is to provide easy access to updated bus schedules for low-income individuals and other Miami-Dade County residents and visitors who rely on public transportation for commuting and getting around the county.
- SMS in the Twilio test phone number: (786) 629-6468
- SMS should be in the format: "BUS [ROUTE SHORT NAME] AT [STOP LOCATION ID]"
- For example: "BUS 101 AT 2884" (The 101/A route at 17th St & Meridian Ave, Miami Beach, FL)
- SMS in the Twilio test phone number: (786) 629-6468
- SMS in format: "STOP AT [INTERSECTION ADDRESS, CITY, STATE]" will return a list of stops near that intersection along with the calculated direction of the street they're on
- Example: "STOP AT 17 ST & MEDIRIAN AVE, MIAMI BEACH, FL" returns #2884 Eastbound.
- SMS in format: "STOP [LOCATION ID]" will return a Google Maps link centered on the coordinates of the location ID
- Example: "STOP 2884" will return https://maps.google.com/maps?q=25.792236,-80.136955&num=1&t=m&z=19
- You may also browse to http://smsbus.illogicalsystems.com/locate-stops.html?phrase=17+st+%26+meridian+ave%2C+miami+beach%2C+fl and play with the search box.
- Go to http://smsbus.miamicode.org/locate-stops.html
- Enter the address to an intersection & press search. For example:
- sw 137 ave & sw 56 st, miami, fl
- Try to always use the city & state with commas.
- Works well:
- alhambra cir & ponce de leon blvd, coral gables, fl
- Does not work well:
- alhambra cir & ponce de leon blvd coral gables fl
- Works well:
- Select the pin that represents your bus stop
- Write down the bus stop number associated with the pin.
- Find your sticker.
- Write your bus number where it says BUS
- Write the stop number where it says AT
- Stick your bus sticker on your stop.
All lettered buses have numbers. Here is a list of numbers associated with bus
routes:
- A – 101
- B – 102
- C – 103
- E – 105
- G – 107
- H – 108
- J – 110
- L - 112
- M – 113
- S – 119
- Create a web server, basic LAMP stack (Requires PHP 5.3 and above)
- Clone the repo
- Download composer (package manager) curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php php composer.phar install
- Create a test Twilio account and set up the SMS hook to the web server, pointing to answer-sms.php
- Config file is in /config/config.php.dist - you put in the twilio send number, sid and auth_token. Don't forget to config your MySQL database in the db section accordingly. We parse the data from the feeds array under "gtfs_exchange".
- In the cli there's a command-line PHP script called update_gtfs.php - you can run this manually or set up a cron job.
- The transit data is in GTFS format: http://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference - We converted the GTFS formatted file into SQL in the data folder, under gtfs_tables.sql
- Right now, the bus IDs are in the GTFS data and - unfortunately - not part of the bus stop sign. As a workaround, we are playing around with taking a bus line and assigning a simple code for a stop. We are focusing on the South Beach Local (123) - Route ID #12782 in GTFS.
- Translations in Spanish and Haitian Creole
- Flesh out more the stop locator & maybe not use SMS to find location IDs.
- Adrian Cardenas (arcardenas@gmail.com)
- Aleyda Mejia (aleydak.mejia@gmail.com)
- Ernie Hsiung (e@erniehsiung.com)
- Lisa Cawley (Copywriter, e-mail redacted)