The Web Technologies Group presented the current status of the Shuttle Tracker on Monday, November 6 at the weekly meeting of the 48th Student Senate. Chairman of the group Sidney Kochman ’19 and project lead Joseph Lyon ’20 discussed specific progress made on the tracker, the updates and changes to the admin interface, the analytics they have received, and some features they have planned for the future.
Kochman started things off with introductions and a brief rundown of the new workflow system WebTech has been using for this semester, but soon yielded the floor to Lyon to talk about progress that has been made on the front end of the Shuttle Tracker itself. Lyon mentioned changes that were made regarding new map tiles and layout, the shuttle icon, a new menu that was added to link schedules, and the ability for the user’s location to be displayed directly on the map. He then went on to talk about progress that has been made regarding the admin interface, which includes a new format and layout, and several changes that allow for the easier editing of routes, stops, and vehicles that will appear on the tracker.
Next, Kochman discussed analytics that WebTech has been receiving since late September, which show that, on average, 450–500 people use the Shuttle Tracker per day—a number that continues to increase—and that the majority, 94 percent, of people use the tracker on their phones. In the future, WebTech hopes to generate better shuttle update messages, improve the flow of the admin interface, and design and implement stop prediction.
You can find the shuttle tracker at https://shuttles.rpi.edu. On Monday, the Senate will meet again in the Shelnutt Gallery.