Intercity Public Transportation in mess

Been a while since i have blogged about public transportation in jordan, and since i've blogged in general due to the fact that i was pretty busy lately, as well as out of the country.

Intercity public transportation has been in a mess lately across jordan, and i am not claiming it was perfect, but at least it was doing the job.

During this summer, things seemed to be going towards a mess in the sector due to several facts. and some of the solutions were causing problems in other parts of the sector, and so on.

Probably this mess was quite an effect on the public due to the fact that it happened on major lines connecting the capital Amman with the major jordanian cities around it. along with the general usual mess that occurred after petrol prices went high again, leaving the PTRC un-handling the case properly like before and causing a mess among the sector's operators and users.

Users of Major lines connecting the capital Amman to Irbid, Salt and Zarqa have been suffering lately. It all started when Irbid-Amman's big buses started a strike by the end of last june along with a strike for the Amman-Irbid white cabs asking for their fairs to be increased after the raise in gasoline prices.
The Big Buses drivers and owners had this strike for the 4th or 5th time, asking again & again to have their operations combined with the small coaster buses, which are, despite being individually owned, operating under a single-owned phantom line operator called "3aroos el Shamal Transport", a company that doesn't own a single bus! More about the coaster/big bus battle can be found here. The strike continued till several days before ramadan, after no solution was found by the PTRC.

On the other hand, 2 other Major lines, Zarqa-UJ-Sweileh and Salt-Raghadan, which are also licensed to big companies that, probably own buses, but sub-contract the operation to individuals driving them, without the needs to care about their maintenance and quality of operation [details available in this response of mine], have been facing trouble after most of their buses are not even willing to start and run any more. this forced the PTRC to find substitutes for operation on those 2 hot lines that work almost 24/7. and from where could those substitutes be but from other lines! on Salt-Raghadan line for example substitutes were some big Irbid-Amman buses (yup, those on strike, but only with a Wasta!), and big Jerash-Amman buses leaving the small town of jerash almost disconnected from the capital with only 2 small buses operating on this line!

While on the other hand, on the Zarqa line, the substitute were buses from the CMTC, which still has some of its lines in the capital Amman badly operated!

Anyway, the transportation between zarqa and Amman was enhanced, or tried to be, by a 60 years old 20km/h running train, operating during ramadan twice a day, by a trip from Zarqa towards Amman at 7.30 AM in the morning and a trip back at 3.30 PM. a nice idea after the death of the Amman-Zarqa light railway project, esp that as declared that the train carts are rehabilitated and air conditioned even. but unfortunately, the announcements of this service didnt exceed some short press releases in the newspapers, resulting in only 6 passengers at its 1st day of operation.

فيما اكد الأخ أن النقل يسير بانتظام ودون مشاكل

ضحكت الأسبوع الماضي لما شفت في جريدة الرأي المقال الآتي ...

اكد طلبة في الجامعة الهاشمية معاناتهم اليومية من خدمات النقل العام من والى الجامعة لافتين الى ان طول انتظار الحافلات وعدم انتظام الدور والتحميل الزائد وتعثر المواعيد والترددات ابرز المشاكل المتكررة التي تواجههم.
وقالوا في اتصال مع الرأي لعرض شكواهم ان خطوط النقل الى الجامعة من العاصمة والمحافظات الاخرى دائما تشهد ازمات كبيرة للنقل مؤكدين انتظارهم لاكثر من ساعة احيانا حتى تحضر الحافلات مشيرين في الوقت ذاته ان وسائط النقل لا تعمل ضمن الترددات وتبقى مصطفه حتى تمتلأ كراسيها وفي بعض الاحيان ممراتها

حتى الآن ما في إشي غريب ... أنا كنت طالب في الجامعة الهاشمية، و بعرف هذا الإشي، و بعرف إنه لسه حاليا أسواء، و شوفت هذا الإشي عدة مرات في مواقف الجامعة في رغدان و صويلح.... و لكن .... بطلعلك رئيس هيئة تنظيم الإشي، و بقلك في نفس الخبر:

......
فيما اكد مدير عام هيئة تنظيم قطاع النقل العام الدكتور هاشم المساعيد ان النقل على خطوط الجامعة يسير بانتظام ودون مشاكل مشيرا الى انه تواجد على احد خطوط الجامعة في ساعات الصباح الباكر من امس ولم يلحظ أي ازمة لنقل الركاب وكانت الحافلات تسير بانتظام
....باقي الخبر

أيش!!!!!!

الله يعين بعض الناس على حالها ، هذا اللي بقدر أحكي ... على كل، ما بدي أنشر فضايح الهيئة الجديدة في ما يخص قطار عمان الزرقاء و قصة "البطاقات الذكية"، لسه بكير

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!

Recycling the PTRC mind!

Upon roba's "DAWWER" and "TADWEER" terms in her Recycling graduation project.
we got this equivilant in public transportation :) Powered by Abu Mahjoob.