Inspiration
Our original team hails from various parts - Carolyn and Anna are both from the States, New York and LA respectively, Ben is from Nice and has lived in Mexico for 15 years, and Nathan came from the Hampshires and has traveled prolifically through Europe (with many stories to tell). We've all had many experiences with coach buses, often frustrating mostly because many bus carriers don't yet have bus tracking platforms. We see the demand from the billions of passengers (and their friends, loved ones) to know where their buses are and how far they are in their routes. We see BUStalk as a way to relieve passenger anxiety while providing small to medium size bus companies a chance to improve their customer service via tech.
What it does
BUStalk so far comprises of an Android app that the bus driver turns on to sync live GPS data to a web app, where customers can see exactly where their buses are and how soon they will arrive after just searching for the bus' number.
How we built it
Ben is a full stack Android developer, so he created an Android app with a simplistic UI that could send GPS data to Firebase. Carolyn is a ful stack web developer, so she worked on scraping data from the data sent through the mobile app on Firebase, and created the page where one sees exactly where their bus is through calls to the Google Map API as well as the landing page where one could enter in a bus number. Of course, we had some fun with it as well. We ran around in many circles around the building to test the GPS data syncing to our web server. For demonstration purposes, and since none of us own a bus, Carolyn also built two demos of bus routes into Dublin and central London using the GMaps API to call for estimated times, distances, and locations on street maps.
Challenges I ran into
The GPS data in the building was nonexistent, and largely difficult to retrieve outside. We couldn't replicate the movement of a bus, so we settled on creating a demo that showcased that we can effectively present GPS data in a pleasing way on the web app once it is synced. We also lost Anna, who was to be our iOS developer, in the middle of the day on Saturday but we believe this app would work the same on iOS.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We worked incredibly hard on our pitch and created a very detailed, imaginative business plan. We even reached out to Uber via Twitter to ask for their help in testing our product! And, we spoke to the CEO of a small coach bus company who seemed very enthusiastic. We put user experience and customer service first, and was able to illustrate the viability, and relative maturity of the project considering its 36-hour lifespan, of the project even without all the transport data.
What's next for BUStalk
Customer reviews, prompts to book future trips so BUStalk has another stream of revenue on ticket commissions, iOS compatibility, talking strategy with more bus companies, data sweeping for bus routes and schedules, expansion to outside the UK.
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