With that said, here's a quick update on things.
The Code is on GitHub
In my past update, I mentioned that I was writing a basic Java program to analyze the static GTFS files for STM. That same code is now up on GitHub, accessible here. Download it, run it, do what you want with it. As documented in the readme, my goals for the program in the future are just to have a few more features based on location/distance calculations, and to make the program run for all static GTFS input, not just STM's files. A friend in Geography with me is also (apparently) working on it at the moment, so we'll see what comes out of that.
STM Finally Has Real-Time Info! ... at 3 Stops
So, naturally, I went out to Cadillac Station and the intersection of Henri-Bourassa/Lacordaire to check the stops out after the library closed today. The real-time info is displayed on a simple screen that shows four routes at a time, and either their real-time or scheduled arrival. The real-time info was accurate, in my limited experience with it. What else is there to say, really?
It's great that real-time info has finally manifested itself in some manner, but this would be infinitely more useful if it was in the hands of transit users before they make their routing decision.
The real-time info screen at Cadillac's south portal.
Excuse my phone's poor low-light performance.
This, somehow, is all Montrealers get, 5 years after a contract was signed to bring real-time arrival information to the system as a whole. I recently wrote about this, so I won't complain about it again.
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That's the end of an update with pretty obvious time constraints. Hopefully, the barrage of work will subside eventually, and I'll be back to posting better stuff.