New Media Web Tools in Transportation

From Baruchnewmedia

1 NYCMate
2 GoogleMaps
3 Mashups using GoogleMaps
4 Waze
5 Hopstop
6 RideCharge
7 MTA Bus Time
8 GasBuddy
9 FuelFrog
10 Primo Spot

NYCMate

NYCMate application provide maps that service the tri-state area, allowing both local and foreign commuters to move though the city like PROs. They include the MTA Subway, Buses, Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, and the PATH trains. Everything you need to get around NYC, and on time.

The MateMate platform is a product of Densebrain, Inc. Their team of highly skilled designers and developers works attentively to create MateMate products on a daily basis. This App can be found in both the Apple Store and Android Market.

NYCMate was the stepping stone for the MateMate family, which has been downloaded by over 500,000 users since its initial introduction in July 2010. The application was the first of its kind to be 100% free and still offer users official transit maps, timetables, and routing. It jumped to the front page of the Apple App Store in the New and Noteworthy category within the first two weeks of launch. Since then, more and more cities transportation systems have been incorporated into the MateMate family of transit applications including major metropolitan and commuter cities around North America

GoogleMaps

Google Maps is a very useful new media web tool. It provides detailed, zoomable road and satellite maps for places throughout the world. While Google Maps cover the entire world, low-populated regions may have maps with significantly less detail, resolution and less available zoom levels.

With Google Maps, planning a trip has become much easier. The maps have in them embedded Wikipedia information on many landmarks and points of interest in the form of clickable icons. Google Maps can provide directions for car travel, walking and public transit. It provides traffic maps that show traffic congestion in many cities around the world. The traffic maps can show live traffic on the roads or predict traffic conditions at a certain time of the day in a given area. Google Maps can also show public transit systems in large cities such as New York. For example, in New York City, Google Maps will show all subway lines outlined in their respective color and the subway stations.

Another very useful feature of Google Maps which made Google very popular, is the Street View. With this feature, you can actually view panoramic 360 degree photographs of the streets that interest you. This feature is amazing because it provides functions to move and look around 360 degrees through the photographs as if you are standing on the street that you selected. High resolution images are available in the Street View mode, but not in all areas.

At first the Street View was available mostly in the major metropolitan areas of the United States but now it is being expanded to roads and highways both in cities and rural areas in many countries around the world. The Street View feature has caused some controversies in other countries such as Germany where the photographs taken by Google showed landmarks whose images the German government wanted to keep private. Other property owners also expressed concerns about having the images of their property on Google Street View, so Google agreed to blur out the images of those landmarks and properties.

Mashups using GoogleMaps

Like other forms of new media, GoogleMaps support user generated content. There are many mashups created using GoogleMaps. One of them is Wayfaring. It lets users add their own information to GoogleMaps. This information can then be shared between all other users. They can add anything from the route of their road trip to best places to eat in their city.

Another mashup is MapMyRide. For those who ride bicycles, it lets people plan and post their bike routes using GoogleMaps. They can also use Google Street View to see their actual bike route if the feature is available in their selected area. It also provides a calculator to let bike riders calculate the calories burned during their ride.

Waze

Waze shows traffic conditions for a given area similar to Google’s traffic maps, however Waze also tracks its users’ location and speed in real-time using their mobile devices and shares that information with other users to let them know where the traffic congestion is. Unlike Google’s traffic maps, it lets its users report on the reason for the congestion and even lets them report police speed traps. There are also numerous other websites that show the locations of traffic light cameras in addition to reporting on police speed traps. One of such websites is Trapster.com.

Waze app running on a smartphone.

Hopstop

This tool can help you plan your trip using the public transportation system. It gives you direction on how to get from point to point using subway, bus or train. It can be very useful if you are in a new city and are not familiar with the public transportation system.

RideCharge

RideCharge is a tool that lets people schedule a taxi pickup using their smartphone. It is available for 27 metropolitan areas and it is very useful for those who need to be in a specific place at a specific time. With RideCharge, you will always be able to get a taxi when you need to get somewhere.

MTA Bus Time

The MTA recently launched a new application called “MTA Bus Time”. This program which you can either download the application for or go to their website for allows you to see the location of the bus you are waiting for in real time. The way this program works is that each bus stop is assigned a different number and commuters interested in finding out how far their bus is can simply text the bus stop number to a number provided by the MTA, Within a few seconds the commuter will receive a text stating all the buses that are on their way to that stop right now and exactly how many stops away it is. Those with smart phones can also download a Quick Response Reader as well (QR). Every bus stop has these a QR code now where people can simply just scan the code and find out how far the next bus is. This is a very good use of new media by the MTA because more than often are the buses delayed or ahead or just simply not running on the schedule posted online or at the bus stop. This can prove to be very cumbersome as many people plan their days according to buses running on time. This program allows commuters to always be on top of their schedule and accurately plan their day.

GasBuddy

In the time of increasing gas prices, this new media tool will help drivers find cheaper gas for their cars. In any given area, gas prices can vary significantly from gas station to gas station. This web tool uses information submitted by its users to show cheapest gas prices in cities around the US and Canada. GasBuddy will even let its users calculate the cost of gas needed to reach a cheaper gas station that might be out of your way. This way, users can decide whether or not it is cheaper to fill up the car at a closer but more expensive gas station or go to a cheaper gas station farther away.

FuelFrog

FuelFrog lets its users calculate the fuel usage for their cars. It lets drivers calculate how many miles they drove between car fill ups and how many gallons they used when filling up their car. The web tool then shows easy to understand but useful charts that display the information. This information can be used by drivers to save fuel and money.

Primo Spot

Primo Spot is a site where it is designed to find different ways of parking in NYC. Primo Spot offers users to locate on-street parking, parking garages and lots, and even bike racks on the streets.

Parking for vehicles on the street

Under this section, this site uses different color coordinated markers to show if spots are free, metered, how much time left on meter spots until it is free, or even spots that are bad to park at.

Parking for vehicles on the street

Under this section, this site also uses different color coordinated markers for the types of parking lots, privately operated, Icon Parking, Central Parking, and etc. Information about the garages/lots are also given including the hourly and daily rates.

Parking for bicycles