2010-04-26: septime now offers the official SEPTA schedules, via the GTFS (Google Transit Feed Specification) data that SEPTA has kindly provided to all interested parties. There are now many more stops in the system for any given route. I'm interested in hearing from users about whether this is a good or a bad thing. I'm not sure whether the original "important stops" that were included in the schedules I used to screen-scrape can even be identified in the GTFS data, but I'm willing to look if the new setup poses a Big Problem on, say, the Blackberry. However, please note: "this is a change and I hate change" does not constitute a Big Problem. (:
I still don't have holiday schedules and emergencies. I'll be working on the former when I get a chance, they are in the GTFS data. The latter is not really practical based on GTFS data and my free time.
Since you can now download complete schedule data directly from SEPTA, I am no longer offering my custom zipfile of raw schedule data.
2008-06-15: statistics are available on the past week of septime.org use, charting usage by type of device. Blackberries are extremely common, followed by Apple's iPhone and iPod (when considered together), then Windows CE, then Palm. Nokia phones like mine are, surprisingly, super-rare.
2008-06-07: septime finally knows where you're going!
septime now asks for your destination stop. This is important because many individual runs of a bus, train, etc. do not make all stops. septime now offers departure times only on runs that are expected to carry you all the way to your destination.
Why yes, that is important information, isn't it! Hey, that's why they call it a public beta test.
To save time, septime will prompt you only for stops further along than your departure stop in the direction you are going. Also, septime no longer displays the last stop as a starting point, for obvious reasons.
If you have existing bookmarks, they will still work but you will be prompted for a destination stop each time you return to them. You can fix that by bookmarking the final results again... or just take advantage of it as a convenient way to fetch departures to several destinations from a single starting point.
I have revamped septime's navigation links. Clicking on any part of the "bread crumb trail," such as the route, direction, departure stop or destination stop, now allows you to change that choice— rather than the choice that follows it. I suspect this is more intuitive and will be easier for users to understand. I have also moved the additional links to a separate row for legibility.
2008-06-06: septime now has convenient subway, train, trolley and bus pages providing links directly to those means of transportation. I have also reorganized the navigation a bit so that it's easier to see where you are within septime.
2008-06-05: Last night I noticed that I couldn't see late-night service on the #57. What the heck? Turns out I was searching just after midnight, so septime was only consulting the next day's schedule. This has been fixed: I now consult the previous day's schedule as well if a query is made before 3am.
I ran a full update of the schedule database this morning. I've come to understand that SEPTA updates their online schedules more often than you might think.
I also updated the zipped XML file containing all of the schedule data. There have been a few downloads of that file, but I haven't heard from any other developers yet. What's up out there, guys? Let's hear some chatter in the outfield.
2008-05-30: it's been a big day, with lots of feedback coming in since the announcement.
One small goof: I had the wrong .xml file on the site, so those who are looking at it will have noticed that it is incomplete. I've now made the correct XML file available (a ZIP file containing the XML file, because it's quite large and because Firefox chokes on large XML files when it tries to open them directly).
Some have criticized the design, or rather the apparent lack of design. Sure, on an iPhone or a desktop, septime looks incredibly plain (to put it kindly). But that's not what I really had in mind when I built it. I'll try to post a photo of what it looks like on my Nokia 6126. It's tough to imagine it working any other way on that phone.
This isn't to say I'm not interested in improving the design... provided it doesn't break my little phone!
Hmm, this news page needs an RSS feed. I'll get on that when I have a moment.
Unofficial SEPTA schedule information: the next ten departures from any stop on any SEPTA route
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