Make Your Own CTA Tracker

Here's something that could be of use for small business owners and condo co-ops, with the deep winter coming. CTA has a do-it-yourself transit info display that "makes it easy for anyone with some computer savvy" to put together a slideshow of bus and train route arrival times so that folks reliant on public transportation don't, for example, freeze their little piggies waiting for a caravan of Clark Street buses.

CTA says the system runs on Mac OS, Windows XP, Vista and 7 and various versions of Linux, and recommends using a video monitor with a display of at least 1024x768, but widescreen is preferred. the slideshow offers customized arrival times for up to 16 stops, weather information and service change information for routes you specifically request.

Someone please let us know how this works, if you're so inclined.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@chicagoist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Chuck Sudo in News on December 8, 2011 1:45 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Dennis McClendon

I installed a Bustracker display in the lobby of my South Loop condo building in Dec. 2009, which I believe partly inspired some friends at CTA to create the DIY interface. South Loop Neighbors has been trying to put similar displays in business windows in Printers Row but the reaction of the business owners has been tepid at best. I set up the remote displays with a LogMeIn installation so I can reset them as needed (the browser will hang for some reason every six weeks or so) without physical access to the computer.

Even if you just want to create a bookmark for your own browser at home or office, DIY is a really good way to do it. One hint: the slide cycle is a little slow for my taste (about twice a minute) so I repeat the components of the URL twice: northbound stop code, then southbound, then northbound again, then southbound again. That causes it to change about every 15 seconds.

Steven Vance

Aldi W Grocer in Wicker Park use the DIY transit tracker. See photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/j...

mickcube

this is awesome! if it were up to me, there would be a monitor at my work showing this all day. also i might have made this up but I think epic burger (south loop) has had something like this going for awhile.

Scott Frazer

Epic burger has tweetdeck running on a mac mini on one of their TV's I think. A separate TV has some sort of news-based display going on.

This would be an awesome thing to put in the lobby of my apartment building.

Navin_Johnson

One of those kind of upscale mini-marts in Wicker Park displays the bus tracker info for their closest stop on North Ave. Kind of a smart idea.