About Transit.wiki

From Transit.Wiki
Revision as of 02:45, 14 May 2015 by Andy (talk | contribs)

Lametrobus2.jpg VTA lrt.jpg Sacrt bus.jpg

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 Unlimited 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?

This wiki is looking for contributors for this Wiki, especially if you have programming skills and/or transit savvy. To start, sign up for an account here, which is required for editing.

This wiki also has a discussion area where questions and comments about the web site are exchanged. No account is necessary.

If you work for a transit agency or a private provider, please let User:Andy know if you find something needs to be changed or added. Although most information comes from the web, some transit information are not available on the internet but can only be verified by being on-the-ground.

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.

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 RSS, 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

Guiding principles

  • Think about new riders who might may not even be fluent in english.
  • Avoid technical and confusing terms. There's no need to say "light-rail vehicle" when "train" works just fine.
  • Never contradict a transit agency unless their information is misleading or false.
  • Providing details useful for new riders that savvy riders take for granted.
  • This is not Wikipedia. That means the information on this site does not have to meet the standards set by Wikipedia. Also, this Wiki should not follow the formatting commonly found in Wikipedia articles.

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