PATH Real-Time Arrivals Android App

Submitted by NocturnalBeaver t3_11b5vz3 in jerseycity

tldr: Want a nicer Android app for the next train at a PATH station that uses location data to show you the closest station and will keep working while you go down the elevator? Arrivals for PATH

Hi folks, I used to write Android code for an app you probably have on your phone, but lost my job in the tech layoffs, so for now I get to write all the Android apps I've wanted to for years, one of which is for PATH.

Screenshot

Some features of the app:

  • Shows next trains at every PATH station.
  • Color-coded and styled using the same styles as on PATH signage and trains, so it should look familiar to new and old riders.
  • Ordered by your closest station so you don't need to scroll.
  • Can optionally only show you the trains headed into NYC if you're in NJ, or into NJ if you're in NYC, so you only see the trains you actually care about.
  • You can choose to use short names like "WTC" or longer names like "World Trade Center". If you've lived here for a while the abbreviations are faster to read.
  • When you lose WiFi/data signal, the ETAs will continue to count down based on the last information the app knows.
  • Uses Matt Razza's API, the same source of data used in Citymapper and Transit.
  • Open source: https://github.com/amandeepg/PathTimes

Since I care more about making the lives of fellow PATH riders better than if you use my app, I'll also link to a great Android widget another Redditer created.

Please let me know of any bugs or any feature enhancements, as crazy as they might seem!

You can download it from the play store: Arrivals for PATH

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Comments

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HobokenJ t1_j9yoiru wrote

Looks cool! Much better than the official PATH app.

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demens1313 t1_j9z02w8 wrote

are google maps times wrong? i've never has an issue

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NocturnalBeaver OP t1_ja1lsxz wrote

My understanding is that Google Maps are scheduled times for PATH (they are realtime for the MTA)

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aTribeCalledLemur t1_ja5g4my wrote

Thank you! This is so much more efficient than the official path app.

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theLRG t1_ja7blp5 wrote

Nice! Love the clean look. Some suggestions:

  • I'd like to be able to rearrange the order so that I can put my local station at the top. EDIT: I guess having location on kinda does this. I just almost never give apps access to my location out of habit, but since this lovely app is open source I can actually confirm that it isn't doing anything with my data! Ty for putting the source up, really appreciate it.
  • The thing at the top that tells you how recently it was updated gives me anxiety - it's animation every second is distracting and feels like a countdown clock even though it is not. I'd appreciate if that was at the bottom of the page or if it only updated every 10s or so.
  • There is no need to label the Hoboken layover trains with HOB if they are past Hoboken on either end. For instance, it is confusing to see JSQ HOB in the Grove St box because that train is the same as JSQ: It is only going to Journal Square. Same as 33rd HOB at like Christopher St. I know the trains themselves don't do this, but it would be a little less confusing in the app.
  • it would be cool to have an indication of what left/right arrows mean. The path app uses "to NY" / "to NJ" to differentiate, which is helpful. This would also help with the last bullet.
  • it would be nice if I could tap on a train and see its scheduled list of stops. This is really missing from the official PATH app. Bonus points for showing current delay and then propagating that delay to each future stop as an estimate.
  • it would be nice if I could tap on the station name and see an expanded view with more trains.
  • Unfortunately, PATH is so often broken in some way that I always check the alerts before going anywhere. it might be necessary to put the Path alerts on this app so that users don't have to use two apps every time they travel.

Overall I like the simplicity, so I think it would be important to not have too much feature creep, but the ones above I think wouldn't be too much. Thank you for not having a "plan your trip" thing: everyone just does that and it adds a lot of friction for advanced users who just want to see timetables.

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NocturnalBeaver OP t1_jaabp0i wrote

Great suggestions!

>I'd like to be able to rearrange the order so that I can put my local station at the top. EDIT: I guess having location on kinda does this. I just almost never give apps access to my location out of habit, but since this lovely app is open source I can actually confirm that it isn't doing anything with my data! Ty for putting the source up, really appreciate it.

Yeah I could have some sort of manual sorting, but it might get a little complex, and possibly confusing if location overrides it.

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>The thing at the top that tells you how recently it was updated gives me anxiety - it's animation every second is distracting and feels like a countdown clock even though it is not. I'd appreciate if that was at the bottom of the page or if it only updated every 10s or so.

Haha this is fair, I might have gone a little overboard here. I think moving it to the bottom makes sense and only showing something at the top if there's something wrong. An error bar will already appear here if the latest refresh (every 30s) failed so that's an indication of failure anyway.

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>There is no need to label the Hoboken layover trains with HOB if they are past Hoboken on either end. For instance, it is confusing to see JSQ HOB in the Grove St box because that train is the same as JSQ: It is only going to Journal Square. Same as 33rd HOB at like Christopher St. I know the trains themselves don't do this, but it would be a little less confusing in the app.

This is a good point. I did keep it for consistency with the trains and the TVs at the stations. I definitely agree with the simplicity here, will need to think if I want that to override the consistency argument.

​

>it would be cool to have an indication of what left/right arrows mean. The path app uses "to NY" / "to NJ" to differentiate, which is helpful. This would also help with the last bullet.

Yeah the arrows aren't immediately obvious, I kind of do expect people to enable the option to only show only the opposite direction, but that is also not super discoverable. My fear with "to NJ/NY" is clutter since that's fairly verbose and not an icon. It'd be nice if either state had an obvious symbol to use. Any ideas here?

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>it would be nice if I could tap on a train and see its scheduled list of stops. This is really missing from the official PATH app. Bonus points for showing current delay and then propagating that delay to each future stop as an estimate.

Oh that would be cool for new riders! The data is not going to be perfect here since the API from PATH doesn't actually say what a train is, only arrivals, so it would be using heuristics, I think I would be able to guess 95% of the time correctly though. I think the delay is already built in, I will notice that on the NWR-WTC train for example all the ETAs at JSQ, Grove, and Exchange Place, will move in sync, or won't move when a train is stopped.

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>it would be nice if I could tap on the station name and see an expanded view with more trains.

All the trains that we get from the API are already shown unfortunately, there's no more information to show, for real-time arrivals. I could add on the schedule afterwards, but that might get a little dicey, e.g. if a train is arriving at 4:12 and the schedule says there is a train at 4:10 and 4:15, which train is that?

​

>Unfortunately, PATH is so often broken in some way that I always check the alerts before going anywhere. it might be necessary to put the Path alerts on this app so that users don't have to use two apps every time they travel.

Good idea! I'll have to see if there's an endpoint for this.

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