TransitU

Inspiration

We understood the unappreciated value of the on-campus bus systems and understood the lack of basic functionality of routing Point A to B for students through this system. We wanted to make a web app that could provide this functionality to allow students to better coordinate how to ride the buses.

What it does

Allows the commuting student to enter their class schedule, and finds the optimal time to leave using live, webscraped bus data with the Live Shuttle Tracker (https://uc.transloc.com/).

How we built it

We used Typescript React in NextJS for the front-end, and a MySQL server with Auth0 for authentication in the back-end. The webscraping relied on JavaScript fetch calls to the same backend API as the Live Shuttle Tracker. It runs this data through the Google Maps API as well to give a final minute count of your estimated time it takes to get on, ride, get off, and walk to your final destination to give you the most accurate arrival time to your scheduled classes.

Challenges we ran into

Originally we were going to have the bus route display on the map page, but ran into issues with the Google Maps API that we couldn't resolve in time. Having the ability to visually display the route the bus is taking the student and the walking path they must take when the bus arrives at the bus stop wouldn't been incredible.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to successfully collaborate using many, many frameworks that we had little to no experience beforehand to make a working application.

What we learned

Using multiple Google APIs is much harder to work with in a React environment and requires more time and prior knowledge than a Hackathon could allocate us with.

What's next for TransitU

Integrating Google Maps effectively to mark with visuals where the student needs to go. First from the origin point to the bus stop, marking the path of the first bus stop to the end, and the walk from exiting the bus to the building.