Archive: Business & Technology

If you have to get around Ithaca and haven't memorized the TCAT (Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit) schedule there is still hope.  14850.com, a local online magazine, now offers a free app for iOS devices that provides a handy aid to navigating the system.  Ride14850 works on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches.  The app was written by David Kornreich, an Ithaca College visiting professor.

"I discovered that if I was on the bus or waiting at the bus stop, and wasn't online, there was no way to figure out my route," Kornreich says. "I wrote the app for myself, and then realized other people might find it useful.

Installing the app is as easy as downloading it from the iTunes App Store.  Once installed it takes you to the Search screen where you enter a starting point and destination and the time you want to travel.  The app returns a list of several possible busses you might take, including bus stops you might walk to to get a more advantageous ride.  That part is a bit ridiculous for rural stops -- you're probably not going to walk from the Lansing Town Hall to Community Corners to catch a bus!  But downtown and on the college campuses it gives you much more reasonable choices you might not otherwise have thought of.

1,2,3 -- 1: choose a starting point, destination, and travel time; 2: pick a route; 3: view route map and pickup times

Touch the bus you want to take and TCAT's route flyer is displayed.  It is a bit small, but pinching outward enlarges the flyer, making route information and times crystal clear.  This is an iPhone app, not a universal one, so it is displayed on the iPad in iPhone size.  As with all such apps you can enlarge the display using the 2x button, but it makes text fuzzy when you do.  Even the PDF text is a bit fuzzy at 2x, though readable when you enlarge it.

Save your favorite routes for quick accessA Favorites screen comes pre-loaded with common trips that you can delete or replace with the ones you take most often.

Ride14850 downloads the route map flyers and route disruption alerts from TCAT's Web site, so having a connection to the Internet does make a difference.  If you are offline you can still view cached route maps and times, but that means you have to have viewed them before when you had Internet access.  So it can pay to view the routes you are most likely to want before hitting the road, which puts those route maps in the cache for later viewing.  Even so, the app can still calculate routes, online or off.

The app's Info screen offers helpful tips for using both the app and the TCAT system.  It also makes it very clear that the developer is not connected with TCAT, and asks users not to bother TCAT with support questions about the app.

Kornreich says Ride14850 is meant to be a helpful planning tool.  It is.  And a very handy one to have on your phone when you are on the go.

"I really believe in mass transit," Kornreich says. "Even though I have a car, I usually prefer to take the bus. I've been riding TCAT since before it was TCAT, since the days of TOMTRAN and CU Transit and Ithaca Transit. The bus system in Ithaca is really terrific. I don't have to find a parking space, and the driver worries about detours and potholes and other road hazards while I read."

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