Yatayat: Mapping public transportation in Nepal

Brown bag presentation to Modi Research Group, 5/29/2013.
Talking about the Yatayat project and the Monsoon Collective that created it.

Transcript

1. Yatayat   Mapping  public  transportation  in   Kathmandu,  Nepal.       Prabhas  Pokharel,  Monsoon  Collective  
2. Hackerspace   Hackathon   Hybrid.     Huzzah!   Poster  by     Sara  Holcombe    
3. We  sat  on  the  floor.   Photos  by   Robert  Ochshorn  
4. And  had  an  exhibition!  
5. Structure   As  open  as  possible.     3-­‐4  hours.  Wed  +  Thurs,  Sat  +  Sun.     4  weeks.   -­‐  Intro  week   -­‐  Weekend  1:  mapping   -­‐  Project  week   -­‐  Weekend  2:  mobile   -­‐  Project  week   -­‐  Weekend  3:  exhibition  prep   -­‐  Finish  +  exhibition.    
6. People  made  projects.  
7. Creativity  by  imitation?   http://lunaspace.wordpress.com/1991/01/19/wish-­‐i-­‐had-­‐them-­‐all/   Aditi  Raychoudhury,  Village  Gossip,  Kirtipur,  Nepal,  1991.  Pen  and  ink.  
8. Back  to  yatayat.  
9. Mapping  before  the  before.   Image  by  OSM  Nepal   Facebook  group.  
10. Even  then  –  transport  was  interesting   (and  we  thought  doable).   (do   Screenshot,   http://prishtinabuses.info  
11. Data  collection   Photos  by  the   Monsoon  Collective  
12. OSM   For  us,  the  obvious  choice.     -­‐  Already  working  on  the  baselayer  map  itself  in  OSM.   -­‐  Viral  license  was  a  value,  not  hindrance.   -­‐  The  tools,  the  tools!   -­‐  Prior  art.   -­‐  DB,  synchronization,  multi-­‐users,  all  figured  out.   Alternatives:  GTFS  file  format.  But  no  public  data   infrastructure  around  it.  
13. Schema   Derived  from  prior  work.  
14. Schema   Relations.   (KTM  public  transport  is  all  road  vehicles.)     Ways  are  already  there  for  roads  already,  we  don’t  touch   their  “core”  attributes.     Stops:  public_transport=stop_position   Relations:  type=route,  route=bus  /  minibus  /  tempo                                        :  all  individual  segments  of  road  that  a  bus                      goes  over  are  put  into  the  relation                                        :  the  start  +  end  stops  are  given  special  “roles”                                within  the  relation    
16. Points  of  interest   ALL  JS!     Initially,  all  client  side.     Retrieval  of  data:  overpass  API.      V1.  Overpass  -­‐>  Front-­‐end  JS.     (SMS  +  Mobile  app  experiments,  supported  by  Node.js   as  well!)    
18. Points  of  interest   ALL  JS!     Data  Quality  code  can  be  run  by  server  as  well  as  client.     V2.  Overpass  -­‐>  Nightly  pull  -­‐>  Data  Quality  check    [-­‐>]  cached  version  -­‐>  Site.       -­‐  Data  Quality  page  always  fed  off  of  raw  OSM  data.   -­‐  Emails!              
20. Right  Now   In  Process  of  working  with  Kathmandu  University   students  and  OSM-­‐Nepal  members  to  continue  data   upkeep.       http://groups.google.com/ group/yatayat-­‐project   Shout  out!  Thanks  Suresh  Shrestha  and  Amrit   Karmacharya  for  keeping  the  project  alive  and  going!  
21. Next  Steps   Better  routing  (anyone  want  to  help)?     Community  building,  more  data  incorporation.     Institutionalization  -­‐-­‐  ?  
22. Thank  You!