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A Better Way for the TTC Website
Published on 25/01/07
by willpate
Jay Goldman invited me to be a part of a group of Toronto web geeks thinking hard about how to make a better TTC website. Our first meeting included an all star lineup of developer David Crow, technology evangelist Joey DeVilla, TTC guru Madhava Enros, policy wonk Mark Kuznicki and your humble narrator as the “online community” guy. They all did a better job of explaining than I can right now, so click their names to find out more.
The current TTC website is quite outdated and needs a lot of work. With a new young TTC Chair Adam Giambrone showing signs that he’s willing to listen to the Toronto bloggers leading the call for a better TTC website, there is a great opportunity here to go from being a negative example to a positive one for the TTC and city of Toronto.
I echo Jay’s thoughts for next steps.
1. The TTC should re-open the RFP for the Website Redesign. The original RFP closed on Thursday, November 23, 2006 and received responses from a number of traditional web shops…The Planned Award date is February 1st, 2007…but we think a strong case can be made for the requirements having changed substantial as a result of the change in Commission Chair and the process kicked off by Robert’s post - strong enough that the original RFP should be replaced.
2. The TTC should completely embrace the community. Soliciting feedback via blogs is a great start, but we’d like to see Adam Giambrone extend that initiative by keeping the rest of this process open and transparent…Collecting feedback in such a public fashion is an amazing step forward and we salute it wholeheartedly! Let’s keep moving in the same direction.
3. The TTC should set a goal of building the best Transit Authority website in the world. Our former Mayor, Mel Lastman, was perhaps overly found of calling Toronto a world-class city, but he was often right. Even the best Transit websites out there don’t set the bar very high and we feel that this is an opportunity to demonstrate our technology and transit leadership by establishing a new watermark.
Hopefully we’ll have some good news on the subject soon. We’re on the right track. Bob Brent, who built the current website, says “where were you 6 years ago when I needed you? :P”
technorati tags:toronto, ttc, transit
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Comments on A Better Way for the TTC Website
6 Responses
Christopher Vance
31/01/07
Gah, my eyes!
Boston’s MTBA.com site was in a similar frozen state until they relaunched the site in December. It’s a big difference, as I mention at http://woosta.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/fantastic-mbtacom-redesign/
If the original RFP is upheld, and then Toronto comes through with a new set of requirements, the web shop completing the work will be up to their necks in feature creep.
Good luck seeing it play out.
Toronto Transit Camp at Will Pate
31/01/07
[...] The group of Toronto bloggers and technologists thinking about a better way for the TTC website is picking up steam and expanding our vision. This Sunday there is going to be a free all day event called Toronto Transit Camp at the Gladstone Hotel. If you live in Toronto and care about public transit, register now. An ad-hoc gathering at the Gladstone Hotel of designers, transit geeks, bloggers, visual artists, tech geeks and cultural creators passionate about transit in Toronto and the TTC. It is a platform for Toronto’s talented design community and enthusiastic transit users and fans to demonstrate their creativity and contribute to a better way for Toronto’s transit system. The content and ideas generated in this open unconference will be delivered to the TTC for their consideration in their work. [...]
LifeTextLinks.com » A Better Way for the TTC Website
02/02/07
[...] Original post by Will Pate and software by Elliott Back [...]
Jenn
14/02/07
Keep an eye open for Vancouver’s new initiative to launch a very detailed and in-depth website. The website is still in it’s trial phases and will be open to the public in May. This initiative by the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority (who are branded as Translink) is called ‘I’ Move, and has been in test phases for something like 16 months… Might be interesting to take a look at, because they will have things like bike route planners, system maps, station information and scheduling wherever a station appears on, for example a bike route map that a user has planned out on the system in the same way that google maps permits road trip planning. They’re going to have linking transit information for different intermodal services, so anyone can plan their trip completely on-line. I believe this is in preparation for their hosting of the Olympic’s in 2010, but never-the-less, the guys out West seem to be doing a great job.
mortgage lead management
31/05/07
mortgage lead management…
–>mortgage lead management…
Neil Garvin
07/07/08
Today I waited 25 minutes in Mississauga for the 32B bus in sweltering heat. When the bus finally showed up it was one of the newer buses and I looked forward to the air conditioning for the hour trip to Eglinton-Bathurst. When I boarded the bus was a sauna, the air conditioning was not on. I asked the driver if it worked and he said no it did not. This is not unusual with the new buses, I have heard that 40% of them have air conditioning that does not work. They are also ingeniously designed so that the little windows above the large windows provide no air flow. A further step backwards is the fact that they have no vents. As a result these new buses are considerably worse in summer than the 40 year old rolling garbage cans that are being held together with duct tape to provide the disgusting service that Torontonians are forced to endure.
Why do we have so many incompetents in this city in positions where their decisions affect so many people. How do we end up with such badly designed, poorly constructed equipment?
How is it that Bombardier is making buses and other transit vehicles that are light years better than what we have for so called Third World countries that have transit systems that we can only dream about?
If we want a TTC that works the whole system needs to be investigated to find out why these things happen.
You may remember the double buses that Bob Ray bought from an NDP friendly company years ago that fell apart in a couple of years when they were supposed to last 20.
Is there a similar reason for us having junk on the road when we pay at least double what other transit riders pay in comparable situations?
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