POSTS

TramTracker has a Web Service!

I'm a fan of the TramTracker iPhone application. Its a little doohickey that fetches information from Yarra Tram's real time tram arrival service to tell you when your next tram will be coming. Having used it a lot over the last couple of months, I wondered last night how the app got its data. What service did it contact to fetch the data.

So I hooked up a logging proxy to my iPhone and traced the calls it was making. Turns out, TramTracker has a fully functioning and documented Web Service just sitting there begging to be used by people. I'm now trying to think of what other nice apps could be made. My first thought was an Android version of the TramTracker application, but that's just a clone (plus I don't own an android handset)... How about a dashboard widget? Oh, turns out there already is one! Its good to see that there is a qango out there that is doing its IT right for a change...

What other sorts of mashups could we make? One other thought I've had is making a Google Transit datasouorce from this information, but I suspect Google is already talking to Yarra Trams about that.