About Transit.wiki

From Transit.Wiki
Revision as of 05:52, 7 April 2018 by Andy (talk | contribs)
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Help Special pages
  1. Content
  2. Editing pages
  3. Starting a new page
  4. Semantic features
  1. Special pages
  2. Recent changes

Welcome to the Transit.Wiki. This wiki is a guide to all buses, trains, ferries, and more to help people travel independently without automobiles.

By presenting a consistent interface, this wiki fills in the gaps left by the official transit web sites. It complements transit trip planner with information and knowledge experienced riders have picked up along the way.

How can you get involved?

It takes a great deal of effort to include and maintain information for about 659 transit agencies, along with thousands of destinations served by transit.

Become a contributor

  1. Sign up for an account here (expect a turnaround time of up to 24 hours)
  2. Start editing

We welcome contributors who are interested in sharing their knowledge about transit.

Please see the help section if you want to get started on editing. The most important part is the Semantic features section, because this wiki is highly depend on Semantic Mediawiki and its ability to query information.

We are looking for expansion into new states and regions, with the ultimate goal of covering every transit agency in the United States. If you're interested in covering a new region, contact User:Andy for methods to input large amount of information rapidly to reduce the time needed to cover new agencies.

Corrections

If you work for a transit agency or a private provider, you may use the contact form to request corrections (you can also sign up for account and do it yourself if interested). We will make the necessary changes as soon as possible.

Guiding principles

  • This is a travel guide, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not like detailed transit information on articles where the main topic is not transit. Here, everything is about transit.
  • We strive to provide accurate transit information on the simplest terms.
    • If the transit agency maintains a quality web site with stable permalinks to schedules for each route, we will have direct link from here to there.
    • If the agency's information changes frequency and not as well organized, we will link to them in a way to minimize 404 not found errors and avoid accessing outdated information remaining on the agency's server.
  • We provide a human review of transit information widely available in machine readable formats like GTFS.
  • We combine information given in different formats and present it in the same way.
  • We provide details useful for new riders that savvy riders take for granted.
  • We avoid technical and confusing terms. There's no need to say "light-rail vehicle" when "train" works just fine.

Structure of the wiki

Most pages on this wiki fall under these categories:

Page types Purpose
Cities List of popular destinations and transportation hubs in city
Counties List of cities and intercity transportation hubs in county
Points of interest
  • Parks, sports facilities, shopping centers, colleges and universities, high schools, hospitals
List of transit routes serving that destination
Transportation hubs List of transit routes serving that hub, along with information on available amenities along with bike and automobile parking. Real time transit arrival information is available for agencies that provide such service via API.
Transit routes (bus, rail, ferry) Links to schedules, maps, fares, and a list of points of interests and transportation hubs served.
Transit providers Routes, fares, service updates from Twitter and/or Facebook (if available)

These pages help provide a virtual tour of each leg of the transit trip and complements online transit trip planners:

HaywardHayward Station (BART)BART Fremont - Daly City Line ► Embarcadero StationN-Judah2nd & King StationAT&T Park

Transit routes suitable for the wiki

Services included should be open to the public and can be used for trips in lieu of automobiles.

Services should be included in wiki Services that aren't so suitable
Fixed route urban transit
Flex (deviated fixed) transit route
General public dial-a-ride
Open-to-public shuttle that serve transit hubs
Intercity bus
Scheduled airport bus/shuttle
Limited fixed route service to special events
(considered to be charter bus under Federal regulations)

Service may be provided by public agencies, non-profit groups, or private companies.

Yellow school bus
Services limited to seniors, disabled, or clients of certain social service.
Parking lot shuttle
Shuttle strictly for a company's employee
Hotel shuttle and rental car shuttle
Door to door on-demand airport van
Charter service (service that require user to reserve the entire vehicle)
Tour/sightseeing bus