Saturday, March 14, 2009

Introducing TrainText.com!

The past several months, I have had a fun little pet project going on. It's called TrainText. On-Demand information for BART riders. Train times, service alerts, contact info and much more.  It works using the Twitter API and takes advantage of Twitter's SMS notification system.

Using Twitter's direct messaging and mobile device updates, now you can send a request from your mobile phone for any BART station and receive real-time estimated train arrivals for that station... in less than one minute! Get additional information about service interruptions and delays, by sending an "alert" command. Get information on Elevator service outages by sending "elevator" or "elev". Get a few key phone numbers for the BART system, by sending the "contact" request.

Though primarily designed for daily commuters, it is proven to be a useful tool for any rider on the go! TrainText especially comes in handy when you're wondering if you can still catch that last train back home across the bay. Should you get a cab or is there time to walk there? Find out now with TrainText! Send a direct message request to traintext on Twitter and know when the next trains are arriving at your station.

What we've got here is just some preliminary preview technology for a much grander vision, with a fully customizable account to track commute times and automatic alerts. I look forward to your enjoyment of TrainText.com as well as your comments. Let me know what you think!

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