In this four minute video from TED, venture capitalist Gary Lauder offers a rapid-fire argument for a broad approach to thinking about the relationship between driver behavior and transportation efficiency.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced on the Bing community blog that Bing Maps will be adding transit routing to its directions options.

Initially transit directions will be available in just 11 major North American cities (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, and Vancouver), though Microsoft has indicated its intention to expand transit directions to additional markets.

This addition helps Bing Maps to match a feature already available in Google Maps, the latter having a significant head start as Google Transit currently offers transit directions in more than 446 cities worldwide.

We congratulate Bing Maps on this new feature. Microsoft adding transit routing to its signature mapping product serves as an indicator of the growing popularity of online transportation planning tools, and the importance of transit agencies making transit schedule data publicly available to software developers.

(Reposted from our friends at Trillium)

Streetfilms has put together an eloquent and persuasive case for making transportation data more open. It is just over 6 minutes long. Watch and enjoy. If you have time, check out some of their other inspiring films on the site.

Here’s from the filmmaker, Elizabeth Press:

Ever find yourself waiting for the next bus, not knowing when it will arrive? Think it would be great if you could check a subway countdown clock from the sidewalk? Or get arrival times on your phone? Giving transit riders better information can make riding the bus or the train more convenient and appealing. And transit agencies are finding that the easiest and least expensive way to do it is by opening data about routes, schedules, and real-time locations to software developers, instead of guarding it like a proprietary secret.

I recently got the chance to dive into the topic of open data in transit with my colleagues at OpenPlans. We went up to Boston to see what transit riders got out of the transportation department’s decision to open up its data. We also talked to New York MTA Chair Jay Walder, City Council Member Gale Brewer, Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase, and Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White to paint a full picture of what it would mean if cities shared their transit and transportation data. The information is there, waiting to be put to use to help people plan transit trips, waste less gas driving, or make their streets safer.

Yesterday brought a bit of excitement to Goose Networks' Seattle offices.

On Tuesday, August 17, 2010, Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States, made a quick six hour stop here in the Emerald City.

The President's first stop? The Grand Central Bakery, a few floors below our office and a long-time favorite among Goose staffers.

Here's an account of the President placing his lunch order, as retold by a member of the White House advance team:

Quick drive along empty streets, past Safeco Field, with clusters of people periodically lining the cleared route. Those crowds thicken as we reach the leafy downtown. Cheering as motorcade stops in front of brick building with the Grand Central Bakery inside.

"Hey guys, how are you? Great place, really beautiful neighborhood." He greets the staff behind the counter. "What's your name?" (There's an Andrea and a Rachel.)

He turns down a local salad with strawberries, even though he acknowledges it sounds good. Then decides on a half a turkey sandwich (described by staff as "Thanksgiving in a sandwich"), a smaller version of that local salad, and a bottle of water. Also gets "something sweet to go."

"You gotta ring me up," he tells them, though they seem not really sure about that. He tells them again, laughing, they really have to.

And so you have it -- even the President pays for his half turkey sandwich at the Grand Central.

Think your local commute is bad? Maybe, but at least you're not in Moscow.

In the Aug 2 eition of The New Yorker Magazine, writer Keith Gessen offers a grim account of the gridlock that grips the Russian capital.

Gessen presents the source of the city's traffic challenges as part historical (Moscow's early rulers built the city as a concentric series of walled forts, with the Kremlin at the center, preventing the diversion of traffic to side roads), part political (the city's elite are afforded driving privileges that serve to cripple the regular flow of traffic), and part cultural (while sitting stuck in traffic is not desireable, it beats the endless lines endured by Muscovites during communist rule). 

The article also discusses the innovative approach taken by Yandex, Russia's largest internet company, in the display of real-time traffic data throughout the city. While other cities use sensors embedded in the pavement to measure traffic flow, in Moscow these have a hard time surviving both the weather and the road repairs the weather necessitates. So, Yandex asks drivers to download software onto their GPS-equipped mobile devices so to that information about their movements can be sent automatically to the Yandex servers. As the program grows, Yandex is able to give an increasingly accurate and encompassing picture of Moscow's traffic situation at any given moment. 

Yesterday, we closed the office doors her at Goose Networks and headed across the street to World Cup Alley, to watch the Uruguay v. Netherlands match. In the moments our attention wasn't fixed on the Flying Dutchmen and Diego Forlán's booming shots on goal, we noticed a small display for PARK(ing) Day.

The idea behind PARK(ing) Day is simple enough; a one-day event where artists, activists, and citizens independently but simultanesously transform metered parking spots into 'PARK(ing)' spaces, i.e. temporary public parks. Now an annual event in a handful of cities across the globe, PARK(ing) Day got it's start in San Francisco in 2005. There, an art collective known as Rebar, devised a creative exploration of how urban public space is allocated and used. For example, up to 70% of San Francisco's downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm.

Rebar's premise: 'Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. What is the range of possible activities for this short-term lease?' The 2005 result was a converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space.

Today, PARK(ing) Day has grown into a global project as local organizations have begun to organize events in their own locales. Here in Seattle, the effort is being led by Feet First, a local non-profit dedicated to promoting walkable communities in the Puget Sound region, and is scheduled for Friday, September 17.

After the Netherlands 3-2 win, as I shuffled out of World Cup Alley alongside my 60 or so fellow spectators, I found myself thinking of how nice it was to share an experience with other local office workers, in a space normally reserved for trash pick-up and other less savory activities.

Would PARK(ing) day have a similar positive impact? I cerntainly hope so, though I suspect having the good fortune of a televised international sporting event wouldn't hurt...

Recently, Aaron Antrim, president of Trillium Transit Solutions, was interviewed for the Climate Change Business Journal's Transportation Edition. Here's an excerpt discussing Aaron's perspective on the online ridematching space and what drives successful programs in that space.

Indeed, using information technology to facilitate ridesharing and transit usage appears to be a growing business that can make these low-carbon travel modes more convenient and attractive. “We’ve see an evolution in the technology,” said Aaron Antrim, president of Trillium Transit Solutions (Portland, Ore.), a three-person IT consulting firm that specializes in helping small and medium-sized transit districts migrate their routes and schedules to Google Transit, the trip planner integrated in Google Maps that currently includes data for over 120 U.S. transit agencies.

“At first the iPhone could only plan driving trips, now it plans driving, transit and walking trips,” said Antrim. “Google Maps now includes biking directions, although that hasn’t shown up on the iPhone yet…. I think in the future mobile devices are going to become more and more powerful and useful for finding and comparing travel options, including transit, carpooling, walking, carshare, taxi, all the options, and compare them by cost and even greenhouse gas impact,” said Antrim. “Multimodal trip planning is going to be a killer app on mobile devices.”

Firms like Avego (Kinsale, Ireland) and Goose Networks (Seattle) are marketing web-enabled ridematching and commute management programs. Avego sells a system that incentivizes drivers to pick up passengers along their route because passengers pay a per-mile fee to defray costs. Goose Networks sells software and services to organizations that want to measure and report the impact of their members commute activities.

There are many regional ridesharing and car/vanpooling websites and ser- vices such as San Luis Obispo County’s iRideshare.org, Rideshare.com which sells monthly vanpool commuting packages ($139 a month for a 50-mile roundtrip) in the Northeast and Zimride.com which is focused on college students. And many people use Facebook or Twitter to find and share rides.

“There are many many different websites and companies out there, but few are really working because they’re not getting a critical mass of users,” said Antrim. “What successful companies like Goose Networks and Zimride have found is that they have to target a group of people with similar travel behavior, corporate campuses or educational institutions being the most common. They also need an external incentive or promotional program to sell the idea.” Antrim said the ridesharing business also needs a common data specification to allow potential users to find and compare their options from multiple services. “There are so many different sites and options that the user base is being divided up,” he said. “In fixed route transit, we have the General Transit Feed Specification for schedules, routes and fares. That doesn’t exist yet for carpooling.”

Hot on the heels of our myFleet iPad App, we're excited to announce the release of our new iPhone application.

Now available to Enterprise and Custom Edition customers, this App offers iPhone based schedules, trip planning, and rider alerts. The App is ready for out-of-the-box enterprise deployment, or as a starting point for further customization by an in-house development team.

Call us today to learn more about the capabilities and deployment options for the Goose iPhone App.

Here at Goose Networks, we were excited to get our hands on an early edition of Apple's new touch-screen tablet device, the iPad. 

We've always believed that mobile technology can play a powerful role in influencing transportation habits. And, if you believe any of the recent buzz, it's clear the iPad has the potential to significantly impact mobile computing. 

While we were eager to see the iPad for the same reasons as others -- web-browsing, streaming videos, ebooks -- we were most eager to answer the question, 'What can the iPad do for our customers?' Specifically, how might the iPad serve to compliment our efforts to help customers improve transportation efficiency at their organizations?

So, after tinkering with the iPad for over a week now, what have we found?

For starters, we made a few key observations that shaped our development of the myFleet App. First, we concluded that any initial effort should focus on providing a tool for transportation administrators. While the iPad has proven an early hit with Apple die-hards, it remains to be seen if the device will gain traction with the average consumer. And, until it does, the utility of a broadly targeted apps will be limited.

Second, in order to best leverage the mobility of the iPad, we felt it was important to provide a tool that would have real on-the-go value. Finally, we wanted to take full advantage of unique iPad display elements, namely the split-view navigation and popover displays. 

The result? The Goose myFleet iPad App, an on-the-go tool for shuttle fleet management. With myFleet, transportation administrators can take full advantage of the iPad's remarkable capabilities to:

• View real-time vehicle location
• Access ridership reports
• Manage SMS alerts anytime, anywhere

The myFleet iPad App is currently available to Enterprise and Custom Edition customers. Please contact us to learn more.

Though our web-based schedules offer users universal access -- your riders can access schedules from anywhere they have internet access; from the office, from home, or via mobile phone -- there are occasions when a good, old-fashioned, printed schedule can be helpful.

After hearing the request for print friendly schedules from a number of our customers, we've updated our schedules tool to include an option for printer-friendly PDF timetables.

To access a print friendly version of a schedule, follow these three simple steps:

1. Open your browser window to your organization's shuttle schedules page. (If you're not currently a Goose customer, you can test drive this feature in our web-based schedules live demo.)
2. Next, select a route. This will open the web-based version of this route's schedule.
3. Just above the schedule timetable, and to the right of the route name, you'll see a PDF icon. Simply click this button to download a printer-friendly PDF version of this time timetable. 

Note that if the selected route travels in two directions, the print friendly version will include both directions of that route.