Scheduling
Driver scheduling system
An eight-week driver rotation and a dispatch board that works out coverage when someone calls in.
At work
I manage a City Transit division, and I build custom software for it when nothing off the shelf fits. Each project here has a write-up covering the problem, the tool and what I learned.
Projects
Paratransit
Paratransit scheduling app
A trip scheduling app for paratransit service, built with Node.js, Express and SQLite.
Open data
Live vehicle positions feed
A real-time feed of bus locations in GTFS Realtime, the standard format that trip-planning apps read.
HardwareIn progress
Real-time bus stop display
A battery-powered e-paper countdown sign for bus stops, prototyped on a $32 CrowPanel ESP32-S3 board.
Procurement
Procurement determination tool
A step-by-step wizard that asks about a purchase and produces the price-reasonableness and small-purchase forms.
Community
Bus coloring and story app
A printable coloring page and a story app that makes a kid's own hand-colored bus the hero.
GameIn progress
LC Transit Simulator
Drive the trolley or a 35 foot bus on the real routes, in a 3D city built from real streets and about 40,000 real building footprints.
Four of these run right here with made-up data. See the demos page.
Posts
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A typo on the front of the bus, and no software to fix it
One of our route signs had an extra L in it. The editing software was long gone. AI read the sign's raw file, found the two bad spots and swapped the letters without disturbing anything else.
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Putting our buses on the map, live
How I turned the GPS units already on our buses into a GTFS Realtime feed, and a live map for the public.
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A driving game set on our real bus routes
A 3D driving game in the browser built from real route data, real streets and about 40,000 real building footprints. It started as a trolley simulator and kept growing.
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A dispatch board for when a driver calls in
An eight-week driver rotation in a spreadsheet, plus a one-page board that works out who covers which route when someone calls in.
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Replacing the paratransit spreadsheets
A small web app for booking paratransit rides, assigning drivers and producing the reports, built with Node.js, Express and SQLite.
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A countdown sign for bus stops, built from a $32 board
Commercial e-paper bus stop signs cost thousands of dollars each. I'm building a single-stop prototype around a $32 e-paper board and a long-range radio.
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A wizard that fills out the procurement forms
A single-page tool that asks plain questions about a purchase and produces the right determination form, with the checks that are easy to forget.
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Color a bus, then watch it save the day
A printable coloring page and a small story app that puts a kid's own hand-colored bus into an adventure, ending with a certificate.
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27 ways I actually use AI
A list of every kind of thing I have used AI for, at work and at home, with a short post on each. Start here.
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Getting a straight answer on a regulation
Four small federal funding and accessibility questions that can each eat an afternoon, and how I ask them now.
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A sanity check before you call the attorney
A church invited us to bring a bus to a community event. I used AI to understand the question before I took it to legal.
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Turning what you see in the field into a business case
We keep meeting riders we cannot talk to. Here is how a real problem at the bus door became a funding memo Finance could approve.
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Asking AI what a document is missing
I had a morning meeting about an old scope of work for a backup generator. I asked one question: what is wrong with this, and what is not in it?
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Everyday email: tone, humor and the question you forgot to answer
I asked AI to make two emails funnier. It did, and it also noticed that one of them never answered the question I was asked.
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Writing a careful public reply
When a resident asks whether a rumor is true, the wording matters. Here is how I draft those replies, including the time the AI got ahead of the facts.
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Checklists, flyers and forms in an afternoon
Cleaning checklists, a fare flyer, a staff reference sheet, a fillable form and an anonymous suggestion box. None of it is glamorous. All of it used to wait.
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Building a procedure library and closing audit findings
A federal review left us with findings and a deadline. Here is how AI helped turn scattered old documents into procedures we can actually follow.
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Untangling grant money before a deadline
Several older grants, a handful of invoices and a date after which the money goes away. AI did the matching and found the invoices that did not fit.
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Turning a policy into a tool
I wanted to save our purchasing staff some work on small purchases. That turned into a memo, then a form, then a wizard that writes the paperwork.
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A consultant-grade plan from documents already on hand
A consultant asked for our transit plan. We did not have a stand-alone one. Here is how the documents we did have became a 14-page plan.
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Building the case for a new service, then rebuilding it
I spent weeks on a presentation about on-demand transit. Then one of my assumptions turned out to be wrong, and the whole thing had to be rebuilt as something else.
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Preparing for a hard meeting in an hour
I had a disagreement over how a written policy should be read, and a meeting in sixty minutes. I asked AI to argue the other side.
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Checking the numbers before you reply
Someone sent me a total. Before I agreed or disagreed, I had AI read the rulebook and recount.
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Building custom software without being a professional developer
I taught myself to build web pages. With AI doing a large share of the typing, I now build the tools my division needs when nothing off the shelf fits.
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Organizing the work itself
Before my assistant manager and I sat down to sort out everything on our plates, I asked AI how to run that meeting.
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Community partnerships and a coloring app
Transit is a public service, and the public should like it. Two small examples of using AI for the community side of the job.
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When the AI is wrong, and when it says no
The most useful post in this series. The mistakes I caught, the ones I nearly did not, and the requests the AI turned down.
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What goes in the work section
A short note on what I plan to write about from the transit side, and what I'll leave out.
Everything in this section is my own account of my work. None of it is an official statement from my employer.