HackerBhojan

ChaloBEST Incubator Agenda December 2012 to May 2013

• Bounty system broken into tasks
• Tasks assigned to days/hours and hackers
• Rs 3,000 daily rate for work of 8 hours
• Rs 5,00,000 (five lakhs) total budget
• 150 full days of work = Rs 4,50,000
• Expense account = Rs 50,000

1. DATABASE

   • Documentation of import process for fresh BEST data (due upon completion of SMS app to demo to BEST)

   • Enhanced hierarchical ordering and/or clustering of stops

     • For enhancing SMS search (Khodadad Circle, railways stations, other stops with close variants)

   • Separate out route number and route type from route codes in db and provide lookup tables for route types

     • Lookup tables for variants of route types (L, LTD., Ring, AS, AS-EXP, etc.)

   • Joining of BEST shelter code table to multiple shelters per stop

     • Extend DB schema with lat-lons for mapping shelters per stop

   • For "bus-spotting" nerds, features for commenting and tracking individual numbered buses

     • Extend DB schema for multiple busses per route or depot
     • Separate bus pages i.e. http://chalobest.in/bus/9521

   • Create DB schema and provide interface for users to "log" their journey based on GPS position

     • Extend DB schema to store lat-lons per user and per route
     • "Share my location" on mobile web and Android apps
     • "I'm on this bus" activates GPS logging on route pages
     • Explore uses and policies for using GPS logs to augment system, including lat-lon, timestamps, and route information.
     • Generate rough line segments for roads and polygons for areas based on OpenStreetMap, GPS logs and stop locations.

   • Additional Datasets:

     • Suburban Railways
     • Thane TMT
     • Navi Mumbai NMMT
     • Cycle Rental/Share (Mool-a-Roop, Cycle Chalao)

2. SMS

   • Message splitting for content greater than 160 characters

   • Normalization of route types and lookups for search

   • Determining thresholds and similarity measures for string matching

   • Populating alternate names for Greater Mumbai via crowd-sourcing

   • Enhancement of query grammar and fine-tuning of reply syntax

   • Ordering of results in reply by route number and type

   • Provide average frequencies on from-to queries

   • User authentication by SMS integrated with web user accounts

   • Handle change-overs in SMS (use OTP API, or ... ?)

   • Research on costs and feasibility of SMS gateway or modem array

   • Final debugging of multiple SMS problems and modem-RapidSMS communications

   • Exploring Indian language support for queries and replies using Unicode

3. WEB

   • API design, development and documentation for app developers

   • Implement simple web design css/html for route, stop, and area pages based on earlier work

   • Implement user contribution features, at multiple levels (New Data + Data Verification)

   • Start work on a 'printable infobox version' that can be stuck on bus stops

   • Integrate user comments / other interactions (?) on area, stop and route pages.

4. OTP/GTFS

   • Enabling passengers to use either train, bus or both together for a trip.

     • Further development of Mumbai and Pune OTP http://trip.chalobest.in http://punebusguide.org
     • Mapping camps/parties for base map development of OpenStreetMap Mumbai

   • Exploring integration of ChaloBEST web site and services with OTP RESTful API

     • Direct integration of multi-modal routing in web framework

   • Final publication of GTFS Mumbai 1.0 with November 2012 BEST DB

   • Work towards GTFS Mumbai 2.0 with railways and real-time

     • Mumbai Suburban Railway data integration and updating
     • Railway station locations from OSM and data from web scraper.
     • GTFS-Realtime
     • Enabling real time updates to transit information on delays, road blocks, festivals
     • Crowd-sourced location and time information to reflect in routing system.

   • Handle change-overs/transfers in SMS and on website (use OTP API, or ... ?)

5. ANDROID

   • Study and report on existing work on the Android app by MacGregor Tech.

   • Study and experiment with other OTP Android frameworks/apps

     • https://github.com/CUTR-at-USF/OpenTripPlanner-for-Android/wiki
     • https://github.com/marchica/OpenTripPlanner-for-Android/wiki

   • Complete Marathi language definition integration for Android.

   • Study existing in-house developed code base and evaluate the OTP-Android codebase

   • Decide on features to migrate to existing code-base or to OTP Android app

   • Launch ChaloBEST Android App v0.5 (or v1.0 ?)

6. COMMUNITY

   • Documentation writing on web, sms, android stack

   • Streamlining of wiki, issue tracker and code repository

   • Beta testing programme for tech-savvy users

   • Development of user storyboards

   • Targetted user research on beta testers

   • Hackathons for bus nerds from Delhi, Chennai, Pune

   • Print media: stickers, placards, timetables, route and area booklets