12 June, 2007

The PTRC lunches a Traveler Information On-Line Service. PS: IT IS NOT BiSCA!

So, The Public Transportation Regulatory Commission, had finally got their Online Traveler Information Services unleashed for the public!

yes, starting yesterday, you are now able to see all the public transportation lines operating through the capital, and even through jordan, embedded in from their GIS system!

By the way, this is one of the "add-on" services available on BiSCA's plan, and the release of this service comes right after BiSCA's public announcement of providing public transportation information services throughout BiSCA's website (www.project-bisca.com) later this summer, and which can be heard HERE in last week's Sayara FM on Radio AmmanNET 92.4 FM. despite the fact that those services will be static and not dynamic as planned for when BiSCA will be implemented.

anyway, sounds interesting, so, lets try it!

go to www.ptrc.gov.jo, and you will be linked to this server that will provide this service (http://193.188.87.69/PTRC/).

Rule Nr 1: NEVER EVER provide a direct IP address for your server over the web.

So ... we get in, and surprise surprise, its the GIS software it self! yes, its just a "deployment version" of their GIS software, where all you can do is to "export to-> web", changing the links to arabic, add some links, changing the title and logo.. and there you go!
and guess what, the entire GIS system is loaded on the client side with the maps using a Java Applet!

Rule Nr 2: Never EVER use Java Applets for extensive usage over the World Wide Web! as not all the client might have a java virtual machine, and as it will be heavy on their machines and communication network!

now the next thing was, after waiting alot of time for the Java applet to load, the maps were corny, and the usability of the zooming and movement was slow and not usable at all,... until now, i couldnot zoom into the city of amman by the way.

Moving further, goes the great "Route finder" service. and this is what i'm going to concentrate about.

First of all, you should search the beginning and end points! for example, I wrote "Sweileh" in arabic and i got 7 results! "Dawwar Sweileh","Jeser Sweileh", "Mothallath Sweileh", "Madeenet Sweileh", "Swelileh", "Morooran be baldet Sweileh" ... etc.

Conclusion, there are duplication in nodes, and no clear points entered in that database, which means that including "Sweileh" in the search will not be the same as including "Dawwar Sweileh" in it, as those are 2 different nodes, and lines passing by 1 of them is not the same as the other.

similar cases can be found with alot of other known points, for example there are 3-4 nodes with the same name of "Amman", as well as other 10s with "Amman" part of their name!

... now comes the misery, I decided to search for the optimal route between "Sweileh" and the Medical City, I GOT THIS!



Nice! I should go from Sweileh to zarqa, and back to Baqa'a through Sweileh to get the Zarqa bus that goes to the Medical city! Halaloooia!

By the way, viewing the paths of the results you will figure out more leashes secrets for the fact that all those information the PTRC has are OUTDATED!

1 simple examples is the search i did for the buses between Jerash and Zarqa, the results gave me there are 4 buses and 1 Service on the route! which is wrong! because ever since 2002 until now, there 2 service cabs and 11 buses! and I know the plate numbers and driver names of all of them! (I mean, if you know that those information of numbers of buses operating on the lines are not appropriate! why are you making them public! ahh ... sorry, or you do not even know that those data do not match reality!).

Now I can say .... BiSCA is coming!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

89 km to arrive medical city from swileh .. nice!!!