User Documentation - WheresMyBus/android GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

About

Anyone who consistently rides King County Metro buses has experienced delays in bus arrival times. Other mobile apps mitigate these problems for riders by using bus location data to estimate and report when buses will actually arrive at stops. Yet, when unusual circumstances arise, these apps cannot always provide an accurate estimate of when a bus will arrive. Without this information, riders often become frustrated as they repeatedly check other apps and see the bus will reportedly arrive in ten minutes when it actually will not come until much later.

To alleviate this problem, we are creating an Android app called Where’s My Bus? to help riders of King County Metro buses find information about why their buses may be stalled in unusual circumstances. Riders can use our app to communicate with each other about issues with bus routes and any circumstances in a particular neighborhood of Seattle that might affect buses by:

  • submitting information about issues they might have experienced on the bus
  • viewing alerts submitted by other users to learn about problems
  • posting questions to which other users can respond through comments

King County Metro can also use Where’s My Bus? to submit alerts for riders. With this information from Where’s My Bus?, riders can then determine if they should delay their plans or find an alternate means of transportation.

No alternatives exist that allow riders to find information about problems with their buses in the way we do. King County Metro provides route alerts for users through their website as well as email and text subscriptions. Although these services provide accurate information directly from the source, the alerts tend to exclusively address reroutes and are only issued during the day on Mondays through Fridays. Moreover, people receiving texts or emails do not necessarily want this information whenever King County Metro sends out an alert, especially if they are not currently waiting for a bus, and people who do not usually take a certain route cannot receive these alerts because they did not sign up for the service ahead of time. Finally, these services do not allow riders to communicate with each other, which may be the easiest way for people to learn about problems.

Where's My Bus? will allow riders to communicate with each other directly, look for information about their bus when they actually want it, and do all of this on an easy-to-use Android app.

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Features

Where’s My Bus? provides several useful features:

  • Additional features as of the Feature Complete Release: Favorites star working, view by favorites only working, added map view and bus locations, clicking on a route or neighborhood properly displays alerts, upvoting/downvoting working, submit and view comments for an alert working, help button working, map view of buses per route working, map view of bus stops (for finding bus routes) working.
  • Working features as of the Beta Feature Release: View Neighborhoods/Routes from catalogue view, submit an alert to the server.
  • Two search functions where users can look up a particular bus route or neighborhood by catalog or by a map view (only routes by map view)
    • A star button for users to star their favorite routes and neighborhoods to access the ones they often visit more quickly
  • Forums for users to submit and view information about problems that affect specific bus routes or neighborhoods in King County through which buses travel
    • A thumbs-up button for users to give an alert a positive rating if they found it helpful or a thumbs-down button to give it a negative rating if they feel it was spam
    • A comments section for each alert where other users can respond
  • An option for users to view the current locations of buses from a particular route on a map
  • A help button for users to learn how to use the major features of our app and where to find the buttons for these features

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How to Install

  1. Download the most recent .apk file from our releases page onto your Android phone
  2. Go to the "Downloads" section on your phone
  3. Click on the .apk file
  4. Press the "Install" button and wait for it to finish

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How to Run

  1. Open the app drawer on your phone
  2. Search for "Where's My Bus?"
  3. Click on the icon to open the app

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How to Use

To search for a forum:

  1. Decide whether you want to search for a bus route or a neighborhood.
  2. Choose to search by catalog or by map.
  3. If you search by catalog, enter the name of the route or neighborhood you want to find and press search. If no match is found, you will be prompted to try again. You may also scroll through the list on the page to find the right forum.
  4. If you search by map, look for a bus stop where your route stops or the neighborhood you want to find. To navigate to a forum for a bus route, select the appropriate bus stop and then the name of the route that stops there. To navigate to a neighborhood forum, press anywhere on the map inside the perimeter for that neighborhood.

To star your favorite routes and neighborhoods:

  1. Click the star next to the name of the bus route or neighborhood to add it to your favorites.
  2. Click the star again to remove it if it is no longer a favorite.

To view a forum with alerts:

  1. Select a forum after searching for one or viewing it in your list of favorites.
  2. Read the alerts listed under the forum.
  3. Press a thumbs-up to give an alert a positive rating or a thumbs-down to give it a negative rating.
  4. Click on an alert to view more information about it and other comments.

To respond to an alert:

  1. Select a forum after searching for one or viewing it in your list of favorites.
  2. Click on an alert to view more information about it and other comments.
  3. Press a thumbs-up to give an alert a positive rating or a thumbs-down to give it a negative rating.
  4. Press to submit a comment on the page for an alert if you want to respond.

To submit a new alert:

  1. Click to submit a new alert on the home page of the app.
  2. Select which bus route or neighborhood about which you intend to provide information.
  3. Enter the information about your alert and submit.

-or-

  1. Select a forum after searching for one or viewing it in your list of favorites.
  2. Click to submit a new alert.
  3. Enter the information about your alert and submit.

To view the locations of buses from a given route:

  1. Search for a forum for a bus route or select one from your favorites.
  2. Click the “View Bus Locations” button.

To get more help with using our app:

  1. Click the help button on any screen to learn about our features and simple instructions for how to use them.

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How to Report a Bug

  1. Open the issue tracker provided in our GitHub organization.
  2. Click the button labeled "New issue".
  3. In the text box labeled "Title", enter a name for the bug that gives a general idea of the problem you wish to report.
  4. In the text box labeled "Leave a comment", enter the following information:
    • a short description of the problem
    • the current version of our software you are using
    • the previous version of the software in which the buggy behavior did not occur (if applicable)
    • the severity of the bug
    • the operating system and hardware you are using
    • steps to reproduce the problem
    • the expected result of these steps
    • the actual result
    • your first name
    • your email address so we may contact you for more information if necessary

View this resource for more information about how to write a helpful bug report.

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