How SMS was added to Trimet TransitTracker

The arrival time data is accessable through the Portland Trimet API. For a given stop id you can get the arrival times for the buses/trains for that stop. These are not the scheduled times but rather the real-time estimated arrival time based on the known GPS coordinates of the actual vehicles on their routes. You can get to this data through IVR system by dialing 503-238-RIDE or on the web.

I have been working with extending existing APIs with additional access such as SMS and XMPP (jabber). So it was natural to take on this trimet service as my first proof of concept.

The overall project to generalizing the process to add SMS and XMPP access to existing web API's is ExtAPI

Look for XMPP access to the Trimet arrival data soon and SMS/XMPP access for other web services at ExtAPI