Below is a preview of my Windows Phone 7 app used for real-time tracking of Chicago buses.

This app will make sure you never miss a bus, and perhaps more importantly, will make sure you know the best time to leave your house or office so you don’t end up standing and waiting at the bus stop for a ridiculous amount of time.

It takes full advantage of the Bing Maps Silverlight control to plot out exact GPS locations of buses and stops, making sure you always know the optimal time to leave.

BusTrack can even group your most frequent stops together by a “location” so you don’t have to bounce in and out of different routes that you might want take to your destination.

Rather than listing out all of the features, please have a look at the video below.

Today Chicago… tomorrow, the world!

(I plan on exploring other bus services around the country/world, to make sure BusTrack can integrate with them too!)

 

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Comments

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Jake Anderson
6/18/2010 11:48 AM
That looks excellent. Now that I'm inspired I need to get an XNA 4 game ready for the new phone platform...

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Dave Arlin
6/18/2010 12:13 PM
Super cool! Exciting to see some real exciting UIs coming from Microsoft. Also, very useful application for us Chicagoans!

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Saijo George
6/18/2010 12:23 PM
nice looking app, hope to see Melbourne in there some day

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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John
6/18/2010 12:49 PM
Cool. Add San Francisco!!

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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efdee
6/18/2010 1:07 PM
Well done Matt, this is starting to look really cool! Also nice of the Chicago bus system to make this kind of information publicly available. Compare this to our (Belgium's) national railroad company who is threatening to sue a student who released an iPhone app in 2008 that queries their lookup system.

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Blackhelicopter
6/19/2010 12:42 AM
Great bus app Matt -- I have a similar Silverlight-based app that displays similar bus arrival data for Seattle that I was porting to Windows Mobile 7. Please contact me if you're looking for Silverlight code or documentation to support the Seattle area's bus system, where I'm sure your app would catch on like wildfire.

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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_||_
6/19/2010 1:26 AM
You should try integrating with the NextBus system that is in use in a lot of universities & which has Google & Bing maps layers.

# Silverlight Cream for June 19, 2010 -- #886

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Community Blogs
6/19/2010 8:33 PM
In this Issue: Colin Eberhardt , Kunal Chowdhury , Victor Gaudioso , Joe Gershgorin , Nick Gravelyn

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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joikus
6/21/2010 9:36 AM
Wow Matt, you have pushed your limits once again! I love how you make it seem so simple and motivate us with this new WP7 app. I might just dump iPhone dev now :D

D

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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schwab
6/21/2010 1:33 PM
Matthew,

Your WP7 application is one of a kind. I would gladly pay up to $3.99 for an application like this.

I think a cool feature wold also give people the ability to comment on the experience they had on specific routes, making it more interactive. For example, I'd like to know which routes have the hottest babes so I can make sure I only take those!

Thanks!

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Andrea
6/23/2010 11:30 AM
Your bus app looks incredible, very nice job!

# Building CTA Bus Tracker for WP7 – Part 1

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Think. Create. Deliver.
6/23/2010 6:37 PM
Lots of public transit users at Clarity, and we’ve been working on a WP7 bus tracking app for both CTA

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Eric Malamisura
6/26/2010 4:48 PM
Hey Matt, this looks extremely well done. If you ever have an idea for a WP7 app that is too big for one person I would love to team up. I own a small company called Elucidsoft that I started back in February. Just got done with a WP7 app myself, Towers of Hanoi a small game I wrote...anyways hit me up!

Thanks,
Eric

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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watch tv online
6/30/2010 9:08 AM
Wow that's really clever, but I think the UI could be a little nicer.

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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leoo
6/30/2010 9:37 AM
Hi! I'm from Brazil and I got totally excited about it. I'm a huge Windows Phone 7 enthusiast and apps like that makes me want to buy it as soon as it possible. Yay!

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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dcbossman
6/30/2010 3:33 PM
this is really great i hate waiting for the bus and not knowing sometimes if i missed it. the one thing i was wondering is why you are using google maps over bing? i was under the impression that WP7 was all about bing.

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Matt Hidinger
6/30/2010 9:12 PM
@dcbossman

The app does use Bing maps, not google maps :)


@Eric Malamisura

Thanks for the comment and I will be sure to keep that in mind. Right now I'm focusing on expanding this app to other cities and finishing the rest of the features and UI polish.

@_||_

I will look into NextBus and whatever data I can find to make sure anyone with public transportation in their area and with a WP7 phone has a nice app to use.

@Everyone else

Thanks for the comments!

# BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Max
7/20/2010 6:12 PM
As someone who has had to rely on the mobile version of Bus Tracker on my WinMo phone for a while, this is a very welcome relief indeed. I will definitely get this app when it's released.

How did you get access to the tracking data? Is it available from CTA?

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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mhidinger
7/21/2010 12:02 PM
@Max

Indeed the CTA provides a web service to access the data. I am discovering that it's actually not that bad of a web service, compared to the other cities I am integrating into this app, CTA was a treat ;)

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Offbeatmammal
7/21/2010 5:53 PM
you should check out OneBusAway.org ... add Chicago data to their system, and add a WP7 app for Seattle area as well :)

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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glennwo
7/21/2010 9:22 PM
This looks way cool! Excellent demonstration of the power of Windows Phone 7 combined with great software. Looking forward to other cities being added since I don't live in Chicago.

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Geoff MacCombe
7/26/2010 4:25 PM
Interesting, could you contact me? We're looking into a Bing Map App to pull our Fleet data from our SQL Tracking app and I would like to see this for our community

Geoff MacCombe
Whatcom Transportation Authority (WTA)
IT Dept
geoffm@ridewta.com

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Steve Jobs
8/19/2010 4:14 AM
Bye Bye Iphone 4 and R2D2 Android. I knew windows phone are going to blow away these other phones. Thank goodness no more ugly icons like iphone 4 and android :)

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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Chris R
8/24/2010 1:58 PM
Love this! Do you have plans to add train tracking (the 'el' in Chicago) to this?

# re: BusTrack Windows Phone 7 App

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mhidinger
8/24/2010 4:09 PM
@Chris R,

Unfortunately the CTA doesn't provide real-time Train information yet. New Jersey actually added real-time train tracking to their service a few weeks ago, I am looking into how I might be able to fit train support into this app. In the mean time, I will only be able to support buses for most cities.
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