Was going to post this - have users submit the track data! That also might make it easier to expand to other stations where you aren't as familiar with the track layout.
Google almost certainly already could, without even asking the commuters, since they have real time location for so many Android phones. But there's a chicken and egg problem: it's hard to get the data before you're able to offer anything in return.
Chicken and egg yes, but he had the recent historical data and a bunch of paid-up users.
I'm just amazed this app was even necessary in a first-world transport system. For all their faults, the UK rail network is pretty good at providing timely information (and as some other comments have mentioned have solid APIs for this stuff). Same with the LTA[1] in Singapore.
Thank you! I definitely considered doing something like that, however — the amount of work required to crowd source the data would be significant. There would be a “chicken & egg” problem — the app wouldn’t be useful to first users, and without the first users, there wouldn’t be enough data to make it useful for everyone else — so this would require a fairly large marketing campaign to get off the ground.
But — one day I may still do it :)
There's hardly a chicken & egg problem if you already had a bunch of happy users. Just display "no data available" on the first day, and have a banner in the app explaining the situation, and ask them to contribute today's data. You'll most certainly get a handful of users who want to help. After 3 or so days of this, the problem will be solved.
