We've waited a year and a half. Patiently. Today, however, Toronto's much under-serviced population will get a glimpse of how the T.T.C. will provide a better transit website. The T.T.C. (in the guise of councillor Adam Giambrone) is calling the press down to City Hall to unveil the Beta version of ttc.ca. Will the people-powered movement kicked off on Readingtoronto.com January 1, 2007 and voraciously taken up by readers of http://www.BlogTO.com, http://www.Spacing.ca, and the http://www.Torontoist.com make a difference?

Will the contributions of everyone who attended TransitCamp be wasted? Will the T.T.C. and its web developer have taken the easy way rather than the better way? I can't make the event—one days notice—so I'll be anxious to read the reports from bloggers and the media who can.

What would a great site look like? There is no one model, but there are good references. A great site would have clear, easy to understand information on routes, timetables, delays, special events, and a whole host of other information in real time. It would be mobile friendly. Waiting for those often late streetcars on Broadview would no longer require calls to the 1-800-clairvoyant line for hints on when to expect the next one.

Can we have a drum roll please?

1. It’s clear to anyone using or interacting with the TTC that they either do not have a design department or if they do, it’s a weak one. More importantly, the TTC does not have a design culture. That’s a fairly easy criticism but a corporation doesn’t actually need designers to have a design culture. There only has to be an ambition to be “better”, or to aim for excellence. If an organization has vision or aspirations to improve, they will eventually seek designers (or at the very least, be told they need designers). Yet, the ambition of the TTC has been clearly been one of survival. If they can’t manage to have a properly staffed design department, then they should reach out to those in Toronto that want to assist them. Again, this goes against the TTC’s culture. They do not want “outsider” help.

   My experience at the TransitCamp was that the TTC was overwhelmed by the design community (and by riders and citizens in general) who wanted to pitch in and help. The TTC’s response has generally been to recede back into their shell. It is no small feat to create any advancement in one of Toronto’s most conservative and insular institutions.

   I know Giambrone has taken some flack in the last year, but he deserves some credit for taking on this Sisyphean labour by attempting to push the TTC into this century. Hopefully, this fairly straightforward goal (not easy or simple mind you, but it’s not rocket science either) will be the first step of many improvements.

   Posted by Peter Rogers  on  06/05  at  10:08 AM

2. Let me disagree with Peter Rogers. The TTC trying to do a Herculean Web site redesign is an utter waste of time and totally outside their core competency. They are not a media company. They shouldn’t play one on, well, the Web.

   The TTC should be doing two things. For its Web presence, something very slim and minimalist. And for its information strategy, APIs and open feeds of as much data as possible.

   What they should be doing is making sure that every bit of information that could be useful for those using, or wanting to use, public transit, is published in a standards-compliant manner.

   And then they could take the rest of the money they are spending on this one-true-Web-site boondoggle, and run a contest to come up with the most useful Web and information applications making use of the data.

   Like a trip planner. A mobile-phone best-route-alert SMS interface. A which-route-is-congested-now Web watch.

   And so on. Point being, the TTC’s job is the lower-layer information-release one. As to putting that information to work, let a thousand flowers bloom.

   Instead, the TTC is spending very significant sums on a closed-data Web clunker which will be out of date within 6 months. And spending almost nothing on updating the information infrastructure to set the data free.

   Which is the only thing they should be doing in the first place.

   Posted by  on  06/05  at  03:41 PM

3. In response to Disparishun,
   I completely agree with you.

   My intent was to say that the TTC should be encouraged to accept outside expertise…but that just isn’t in their DNA. If left to their own devices, the Commission wouldn’t even recognize that they need help. As to building a light weight site with open API/feeds etc I completely agree that should be their strategy. But the TTC isn’t 2 years behind in their information strategy, they’re perhaps 20 years behind. That’s what we’re up against. For any real progress, they don’t need a slick Web site (well, they need some kind of web site) but what’s required is a fundamental shift in their corporate culture.

   Posted by Peter Rogers  on  06/06  at  12:21 AM

4. I see what you mean Peter—thanks.

   There’s a good scholarly article now out there which articulates some of the ideas that many of us have been forward for some time now.

   Those who don’t seem to “get it”—this static Web site and, presumably, the RFP that spawned it, makes a good case that the TTC is among them—would do well to read the article linked to here. Pass it on!

   Posted by  on  06/06  at  02:59 PM

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