Next Bus Dublin Beta

smackyB

Hi folks, with the arrival of the new Go-Ahead operated routes I've had to transition the app away from using Dublin Bus' own data feed to the one provided by Transport For Ireland in order to support these routes. This meant a lot of changes with regards to how the app consumes and stores the data from this new feed.

As it is quite a large change I am reluctant to make it fully available until more testing is done. With that in mind I've made a beta release so that those who use these new routes can test this release and hopefully find any bugs whilst those who don't use the new routes can stick with the more stable previous release.

There are some known issues which are unfortunately out of my control as they relate to the data provided by Transport For Ireland (TFI).

- In the list of routes on the app the origin and destination may differ from what you're used to seeing. This is due to TFI not providing a single origin & destination field for each route, instead there are often multiple variations for each route so the app just shows the origin & destination from the first variation in the list.

- A lot of routes have heaps of route variations when you click on them. Unfortunately there's no way for the app to know which is the main route and which are rare variations.

- When clicking on a bus and then clicking on "view bus route", it may not be able to find the route due to the bus having a different destination to what is stored in the list of route variations. For example the 59 bus has a destination of Killiney Hill Road in the route variations but the real-time buses will have a destination of Killiney Hill Park so it won't be able to find it.

I'll be sending feedback to TFI about these issues but have no idea if they can/will fix them.

You can sign up for the beta on the listing page in the app store

Free Version

Paid Version

coylemj

Stephen, do you want feedback here, on the comment field in the app store or direct to you by e-mail?

BTW: So far, so good. GAI routes now showing up on my favourite stops and I added a new favourite (10161 - Sydenham Road) for the rerouted 75 in Dundrum. Thanks for the update.

Victor

smackyB wrote: »

- When clicking on a bus and then clicking on "view bus route", it may not be able to find the route due to the bus having a different destination to what is stored in the list of route variations. For example the 59 bus has a destination of Killiney Hill Road in the route variations but the real-time buses will have a destination of Killiney Hill Park so it won't be able to find it.

Stop number (Dublin Bus number or GTFS number) is unique, so operate off that.

There has been a problem with Dublin Bus using two part names "Rathgar Road, Rathmines Road", when international practice is to use a single name.

smackyB

coylemj wrote: »

Stephen, do you want feedback here, on the comment field in the app store or direct to you by e-mail?

BTW: So far, so good. GAI routes now showing up on my favourite stops and I added a new favourite (10161 - Sydenham Road) for the rerouted 75 in Dundrum. Thanks for the update.

Maybe best to post here so others can see what bugs have already been found

Victor wrote: »

Stop number (Dublin Bus number or GTFS number) is unique, so operate off that.

There has been a problem with Dublin Bus using two part names "Rathgar Road, Rathmines Road", when international practice is to use a single name.

Yes but the realtime bus information contains only the destination name, not the destination stop id.

Wheety

smackyB wrote: »

Yes but the realtime bus information contains only the destination name, not the destination stop id.

Hopefully that should be an easy fix for TFI.