for the informal microbuses , it needs more work if no cheap GPS ( I don’t think they would mind the “monitoring” as they are freelancers - working without a company or a “formal” boss ) , and it needs more benefits for the drivers in order to try install such stuff…
Your idea seems like a great opportunity for making an impact with open tech, and it would not be that much effort. Adding GPS hardware at least can be quite cheap. A proposal would be:
Put an ordinary Android smartphone into the microbus. It can also simply be the driver's phone, or more reliably, a permanently installed phone with a permanent power supply.
Put an app on the phone that logs GPS locations via a data connection. There are tons of these, some for tracking people, tracking ones phone and other purposes.
GPS reception of a phone can be poor, esp. inside a car. To improve GPS reception and accuracy, use an external GPS receiver ("GPS mouse") that is externally mounted to the car. It should get a permanent power supply. Usually these connect via Bluetooth to the phone, and for that there are several apps: BlueGPS (open source) and Bluetooth GPS (freeware) for example. I tested the latter one with my receiver, works well.
I would rather prefer not to use the drivers’ phone. as they change shifts and any way it’s a very personal data . but adding a cheap phone could work.
well I can have a trial location and test with some bus lines… will need to put some time into it. couple of friends are working on mobility at the moment and would be a good fit for their studies.
will keep u updated. and also will need to ask some more “technical” questions later.
Seemingly there are ways to create sweet public transport maps from an informal microbus system. The matatu system mapping could be an inspiration. Just came across it, sharing just in case it’s useful.
" This map is a simulation based on the timetables of the TL Lausanne public transport network. More information about this project you can find on Github or you can simply contact me. "
Just a quick update about my availability for January. I am not able to pick some dates for January now. I am waiting for an answer I should have by the end of this week. Then elf and I will make a plan for the dev sprint together with Matera Municipality. Next week I’ll have a video call with them and I’ll introduce this topic to them.
@piersoft “our” gtfs are still rough and Miccolis can help us to improve them. I do not see it as a competition. Our skills and weaknesses are complementary.
OT: I like elf’s idea of “enabling”. As Karl Marx said, traditional historical accounts of pre-capitalist societies are often Robinsonades (from Robinson Crusoe), namely “fiction”. In the sense that they are projections of the present to the past. Smurfs villages where division of labor, equal exchanges and barter (instead of money) are given as natural. I think (but my only source are my grandmother’s tales) the economy of a village in the Alps, for instance, was based on the concept of enabling as expressed by elf (as far I understood his words). And “enabling” was the source of a slow innovation (Stuart Kauffman uses a similar argument in biology), very different in nature by the explosive and disruptive innovation rate in capitalism.
besides public transport i plan to test deploy various services developed by civic tech hackers possibly soon also setting up an instance of open source Sharetribe on beni.matera.io@Matthias we could take a look at adding integration with Makerfox as networked barter service… also ask @matslats to offer drupal based Community Forge as timebank and mutual credit services! @david.bovill
We exchanged few emails with @Alberto and @mstn so I would like to share latest state of things with everyone interested.
Dates: Feb 9th - Feb 22nd
From latest Alberto’s email:
"
I’ll ask someone (called Ida) to help us with finding a place for you to stay. Cheap or free.
I will ask for you to be able to use the unMonastery during the daytime (only the downstairs space). I am reasonably sure you can use the workspace there, and I hope the kitchen too. This will enable you to cook your own meals – I know Elf prefers it.
Ida could possibly also help with arranging hospitality for you in Potenza when you go over. Take heed: Miccolis does indeed serve Potenza, but only with city-to-city lines. Urban transport is managed by another company.
Piero will arrange something in Matera on Open Data Day.
"
From latest Marco’s email:
"
In passing, I gave my bank account to Piersoft. This money will be our
There have been talks of transferring the project (symbolically, its GitHub repo) from the unMonastery over to the local community, under the Spaghetti Open Data umbrella. Maybe @IdaLeone knows more?