circ@dc: Never get lost in downtown DC again.
circ@dc is a bus locating application for DC Circulator buses. The application uses the publicly available real-time bus locations of DC Circulator, and shows to the user the approaching buses' location and an estimate of arrival time.
There are several ways to use this application. For users familiar with the Circulator routes, the "Nearby" and "Favorites" stops are most convenient. "Nearby" shows the bus stops within a certain radius around the user's current location. You can change the nearby radius setting in the Settings tab. "Favorites" shows the bus stops bookmarked by the user. To bookmark a station, simply tap the star in the bus arrival time page. When the user stays on the bus arrival time page, the predictions will refresh automatically every 20 seconds.
Users less familiar with the Circulator routes can browse through all the bus stops in each route in a nice rail view. Tapping the location update button on the top right corner will automatically scroll the nearest bus station to the top of list.
Another way to use this application is to navigate around your current location in the Map tab. Bus stops are shown in different colors representing each of the five Circulator routes. Tapping on the bus stop icon will show you the bus arrival prediction for that stop as well.
If you are waiting for the bus in late night, a special feature may come in handy. Shaking your iPhone or iPod Touch with this application on, it will turn itself into a flashing red light. Hold it up so that the bus driver can easily spot you in the darkness. Shake again to deactivate.
Disclaimer: Since the DC Circulator GPS bus system only provides real-time location data but no arrival time prediction, this application has to rely solely on instantaneous location data to give the bus arrival time predictions. This limitation means that the bus arrival estimate given by this application may be off by a couple of minutes sometimes.
Suggestions and comments are welcome!
