by Angela Miller
We haven’t formally announced it yet, but yesterday NCTD went live on Google Transit finally.  This was a nearly 9 month effort to get our schedules loaded into the Google Maps tools.  Now when people are looking for directions in San Diego County, they can also choose to find the optional public transit path with next departure times.

The thing that is really nice about this tool is that it consolidates information from NCTD, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, Amtrak, and other southern California transit entities so that it doesn’t matter who is providing the service you can still easily plan the trip.

Anything that makes public transit a more convenient option for the community is a good investment in my mind.  And unlike some of the other technology investments, this one cost the District almost nothing and should have a significant return.

My plan is to now jump off of this and leverage this tool to provide better information for the community through kiosks, and devices for our security and customer service teams that help all users better plan their trips.

Also thought I would mention that there is a SPRINTER application in the iPhone Applications Store.  I’m not endorsing it, but it is there.  This application was built by an independent third party developer using just our paper schedules.  My intent is to make our schedules available in the Google Transit Feed format on our website for any developer who might want to create applications.  Exciting stuff.