Download T-on-Time v1.0.7 now (.air file). Changelog

This application requires Adobe® AIR™ to be installed for Mac OS or Windows.

T-on-Time

  1. Introduction
  2. Starting T-on-Time
  3. Setting your preferences
  4. Timer Preferences
  5. Alert Preferences
  6. Twitter Preferences
  7. Technology
  8. License and Credits

T-on-Time was developed to help you catch your commuter rail!

There is nothing worse than missing your commuter rail.

Have you ever found yourself sulking on a hard bench at North Station at 9PM on a Tuesday night? You are trying to make (or avoid) small talk with some oddball. Dinner is long cold. Your wife is exhausted from putting the kids to bed at night by herself. You won't get a chance to kiss the kids goodnight tonight. If this is you, you'll understand why I built this application.

Soopen alertme days, the commuter rail is delayed and there is nothing you can do about it.

But on many days, you could have done something to prevent it. If you have missed your train, you were probably minutes or even seconds late, and may have watched your train roll away. Sometimes, it's because someone decided to start a conversation with you 2 minutes before you had to leave the office. On another day, you knew the clocks were a little off anyway, so you figured you could make it up by running fast. Maybe you weren't aware of a Red-Line delay in downtown crossing - you could have taken the Green line that day or even walked.

T-on-Time is a desktop widget. It runs on either Windows or Macintosh. The application makes use of the various Internet data feeds which the MBTA has provided (you must be connected to the Internet for the application to work). It is compact as possible - taking up very little room on your desktop.

The widget is composed of 3 parts. The first is a countdown timer, which let's you know when to leave the office. The timer is synchronized with the U.S. government (or NIST) time servers so even if your computer clock is incorrect, the timer will be correct. The second is a real time feed of the alerts which affect your commute. The third is a real-twitter feed reader which allows your Twitter friends to provide real-time updates - in case the alerts are not enough.

Starting T-on-Time

To start T-on-Time click the red Adobe Air logo on your desktop. When the application launches, click "setup".

Setting your preferences

To set your preferences, hit click "setup" at the top of T-on-Time. A popup window should appear. Please note - if you are not connected to the Internet, the settings/setup screen may not work properly. This is because the full list of train stops and times come from the Internet - they are not part of T-on-Time.

Preferences are stored on your local computer within the "Adobe Air" SQL-Lite database.

Timer preferencesT-on-Time

The timer preferences determine how the countdown timer will be set. Choose your main rail (commuter rail only). Once you have chosen your rail, the pull down menu of stops should appear. Next, choose your stop. That will populate the list of times. Choose the time you catch the train. Next, choose the number of minutes required to catch your train. This time will be subtracted from your countdown timer. Since the timer resides on your desktop, it tells you when to leave, not when the train arrives at the station.

Please note that the timer does not change based on the alerts below.

The timer starts each day 8 hours before it's time to leave the office.

The timer will display hours/minutes up until 60 minutes before you have to leave. It then displays minutes/seconds. The idea is to increase the psychological urgency of when it's time to go. Plus, it's helpful to let your boss and co-workers know that you're clock has X minutes remaining - they will see visual proof on your screen and won't start that drawn-out conversation!

The timer synchronizes with the NIST time after saving your preferences. It does this by calculating an offset from your computer time. The NIST time will thereafter be checked and synchronized every hour.

NOTE: It is possible to throw off the countdown timer, by changing your computer's time while T-on-Time is running. To fix, simply restart or save your preferences again.

It is typical that the countdown timer is a few minutes different from your clock time. This is due to your clock time being off by that amount, relative to the NIST time.

An train leaving sound will play when the timer reaches 0:00 (v1.0.6 and above).

Alert preferences

The MBTA provides a real-time RSS feed of all delays happening on the system. However, most people don't care about all the alerts (there are usually 30+ alerts). The Alert preferences allow you to filter out the alerts which appear on T-on-Time. For most people, the alerts they choose will be the infrastructure which takes them to their rail stop. For example, you might take a bus to get to North Station where you catch the Haverhill line.open tweet

To add alerts, simply pull down the service. Click "Watch". The alert will be added to the list below. Be sure to click "Save Preferences" when complete.

Commuter rails themselves are not included in the list of alerts. The rail you choose in "Timer Preferences" above will be added automatically to your alerts.

The alerts you choose will appear within the T-on-Time "Alerts" section. Hover your mouse over the alert to read the details.

To avoid too many RSS downloads, T-on-Time cycles through the alerts you have selected. The cycle time for alerts and tweets is 15 seconds. Therefore, if you are watching a large number of alerts, it may take 15seconds times the number of alerts to see them all.

New alerts will be appended to the top of existing alerts.

An alert sound will play when a new alert arrives (v1.0.6 and above).

Twitter Preferences

The Twitter section allows you to follow your Twitter commuter friends in the same window as your countdown timer and alerts. This feature encourages you to create a network of friends who have a similar commute as you. These friends can let you know if a train is delayed, suggest alternative ways to your stop, or warn you before getting on a over-crowded train.

To follow a twitter user, enter their username and click "Follow". This will add them to the list below. Be sure to click "Save Preferences" when done.

You can also filter your conversations, using "hash tags" or short words which categorize the tweets. This allows you to ignore most tweets from your commuter friends - except for those which relate to your commute.

The tweets you follow will appear in the "Tweets" section of the application. Hover over the tweet to see it in full.

Tweets are fetched every 15 seconds on a round-robin cycle, as Alerts above.dialog box

New tweets will appear on top of the other tweets, also as Alerts above.

To add a tweet with your current hash tag set, click "add tweet" at the bottom of T-on-Time.

An tweet sound will play when a new tweet arrives (v1.0.6 and above).

Technology

T-on-Time was developed using Adobe Air. It calls out to the following services a) twitter public search b) MBTA RSS feeds c) neptune web assisted PHP scripts for time synchronization, stops, times and alert id numbers (these are stored in a local database). No user information is stored anywhere other than the user's computer (preferences). No tracking is performed within the application, although we do watch our access logs.

License and Credits

T-on-Time was developed by Neptune Web, Inc. from Somerville, MA. Neptune Web is a full service web development company. The application was developed as a contest entry to the MASS DOT Developer's Challenge.

Neptune Web, Inc. releases this code under a GPLv3, open source license.

Credits:

Thanks to Andrea Gabrielle, Neptune Web's president, for sponsoring this project.