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iSepta gives iPhone users Philly transit insight

by Scott McNulty May 19th 2008 at 4:30PM

iSepta, a new iPhone friendly site, has a limited audience, but to that audience (of which I am a member) it's a game changer. As I've mentioned once or twice here on TUAW, I'm a proud Philadelphia resident. As such I find myself using public transportation fairly frequently, which means I am forced to use SEPTA's website (that's the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, to you).


SEPTA runs, amongst other things, the Regional Rail, which connects Philadelphia to its suburbs with a series of train lines. iSepta lets you plan your trip from the comfort of your iPhone without having to visit the official SEPTA site, which is decidedly mobile-device unfriendly.

Starting a new trip with iSepta couldn't be easier: Click the 'New Trip' button, enter your starting station, then select your destination station.
That's it. You're then presented with the next 5 trains that meet your criteria, as well as an option to view the weekday and weekend schedules. iSepta is even clever enough to simply swap your starting point and destination so you can quickly find out what time you need to be at the station to get back.

You can also text iSepta with your starting point and end point and it will text you back with the next 3 trains.

At the moment iSepta only offers up schedules for the Regional Rail, so users of Philadelphia's various other forms of public transportation are out of luck. The site also lacks SEPTA's up to the minute status about cancelled trains and late arrivals, but the developers are working on adding that.

If it seems like I'm gushing here, that's because I am. iSepta is such a vast improvement over SEPTA's website that I'll be using to get all the info I need about the Regional Rail schedule whether I'm on my iPhone or at my Mac.



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iSepta, a new iPhone friendly site, has a limited audience, but to that audience (of which I am a member) it's a game changer. As I've...
 

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Tim

Great. I hated working with their counterintuitive website when I was planning a trip out to my girlfriend's. What made it really complicated was that her place was only serviced by Amtrak, so I had to negotiate two train services, and give plenty of time for both Septa and Amtrak to be late. They both were fine, though.

What we really need is our "other" love affair company, Google, to do something. Their map system makes it intuitive to go from one place to another by car, and they have transit for a few places. What they really need to do is index all sorts of transit schedules (planes, trains, busses, etc) and fares and come up with an itinerary based on two locations. I guess the "right" thing to do would be to code it myself, but I'm not that smart. I know what I want, and I know it's possible. By my logic, that means it should exist.

May 20 2008 at 7:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Tim's comment
trainlogic_info

Hi, I'd like to mention that the site that "indexes" the schedules and combines them together exists, it's trainlogic.net, and I am a person behind it. You're welcome to try it free of charge. The service is not free (mainly because of the schedules have to be maintanianed to keep them current) - but it actually does what you have in mind. Plus, it will work on any phone that runs Java: no need to shell the $300 on an IPod, and since it's not a web app, it does not need Internet conection to go online for the schedule info each time. You save on this too.

The iSepta project looks very cool too. However, at the moment it looks like it handles only direct trains. I am not sure if it has subway lines, but even if it does it will not quite work in subways, will it? But if you are an iPhone guy - that's not bad, a nice toy, I commend the creators for the "design" part of it.

May 30 2008 at 11:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

Don't give Septa too much credit here guys, as I believe this is a private project. Scott, can you confirm?

May 20 2008 at 3:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

As a freshly minted (read: just finished my masters program) planner, I LOVE this. Nice job Septa.

For what its worth, the njTransit.com site isn't bad, not iphone optimized but I use it All The Time.

May 20 2008 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brad Chmielewski

Wow! What a great idea. I would love to see a Chicago CTA version.

May 20 2008 at 10:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John

They wonder why people don't use public transit.....

Half the battle is figuring out how the hell you are supposed to get where you need..

Kudos to apple and philly

come on for md/dc region, we need this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 20 2008 at 10:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nanodalek

This might just be that think that makes me NEED to have an iPhone. Wow.

May 19 2008 at 11:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
HighHolburn

go eagles.

May 19 2008 at 10:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
chris.rossi

wow. way to go SEPTA. you suck at many things but this gets you some points.
i'm happier to know there are many other riders here.

May 19 2008 at 9:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Adam

AMAZING. Out of all the major cities out there, I am thrilled that this happened in Philly so quickly... I feel like one of the lucky few.

Thanks for posting about this Scott!

May 19 2008 at 9:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Todd

Wow - that's beautiful. I wish something like that existed for Vancouver. I'd definitely pay for it.

May 19 2008 at 8:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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