Using public transportation in the Triangle just got much easier for N.C. State students, thanks to a new partnership with Google Transit. 

GoTriangle heads up all of the public transportation in the Triangle area, including the Wolfline. It decided to partner with Google after seeing the growing popularity of their services, according to Lauren Parker, GoTriangle’s marketing coordinator.

According to the Google Transit Partner Program website, Google Transit is “a public transportation planning tool that combines the latest agency data with the power of Google Maps. It integrates transit stop, route, schedule, and fare information to make trip planning quick and easy.”

“The project came about after receiving several requests from Triangle area riders [and] visitors who wanted the service, as well as seeing the growing popularity of Google Transit around the world,” Parker said.

According to John Feasel, a sophomore in history, these new tools will benefit students who like to travel off campus.

“It will be significantly easier to figure out times and places where you can get buses in a mainstream way.  Everyone uses Google, so it makes sense to use that for GoTriangle.  With parking the way it is, lots of people take buses and this will definitely make things easier for those people,” Feasel said.

To get the idea rolling, GoTriangle got in touch with Google to see how it could take advantage of the Transit program.

“They lay out specific instructions for how to add your transit agencies routes, schedules and stops to Google. Google has a specific team for transit and we were in touch with them during the initial implementation steps,” Parker said.

There are several public transportation outlets that will be included in the schedule, including the Wolfline, Triangle Transit and Capital Area Transit.  According to Parker, the partnership with GoTriangle and Google has been in the works for about a year.

“We have been planning to get all GoTriangle partner agencies into Google Transit since early 2009. The Google Transit implementation was just part of a larger vision to provide improved information technologies, including real-time bus arrival information, which is coming this June, and an information warehouse for developers who want to create their own applications,” Parker said.

GoTriangle began its initial preparation of our data for Google in early September. “It took approximately four months to get the entire data ready, approved by Google and live on their site,” Parker said.

The GoTriangle and Google partnership is in place to make traveling around Raleigh easier and more sustainable for students, according to Parker. Schedules and routes will be available for students to view online at any time.

“With Google being the main place where people get their information and directions, being on Google Maps will allow students to see the other options that they have for traveling around the Triangle and getting off campus in a more sustainable way,” Parker said.

The new partnership with Google marks the beginning of the new regional technology program called GoLive, which is going to include an open-source data warehouse and a regional real-time system along with other tools for riders. According to Parker, GoLive is meant to make every aspect of traveling more accessible. GoLive will be fully up and running by May 2011.

“GoLive is the name for all new customer-facing real-time information that will be available in May 2011. It will include regional real-time digital signs, text messaging for bus location, a new web interface and a data warehouse for mobile developers. All of these tools will benefit travelers in their pre-planning of their transit trips and in route planning,” Parker said.

The new technology will allow public transit riders to customize their travel routes, Parker said. “Knowing where your bus is or when it’s going to arrive is extremely helpful for travelers. With the open-source data being available, travelers will be able to create route plans that are personal to them, which is a huge benefit,” Parker said.