Calgarian lives will improve with safe, alternative transportation choices. Societally, getting people moving together safely and comfortably will facilitate real life interactions, and reduce our increasingly isolated digital lives. There will be less impacts on the environment from a consumable and output perspective. It will make Calgarians happy, and get them where they need to go. We could also reduce taxes by investing in high return human scaled infrastructure, instead of simply building and maintaining more roads.

Technology could provide better, more reliable transit vehicles. We could have a simple app that shows you where your bus or Ctrain is in real time. You could use a map to find gaps within bicycle routes. You could satellite images to determine poor sidewalks, and where snow is inappropriately stored. You could enhance 311 to report sidewalks and bike lanes with immediate feedback. You could heat sidewalks and bus shelters with energy recruited from alternative energy sources. Ultimately, you just need to put some resources into it.

It will include every single individual bus and train active at any moment. People can access these data any time anywhere, and schedule their time more sensibly. Every citizen can have the app for their phone, tablet, or computer. It could help everyone!

Imagine that you left your laptop on the bus. In ten seconds you can find out where that bus is, and you could intercept it and retrieve your item! Imagine knowing that it takes 3 minutes to get to your bus stop and having an alarm sound when it was time to leave. No more frozen cheeks.

Clearly the accesses to the live system could be counted, since they are on online. Queries for individual buses, routes, or riders can be assessed. The app could have a direct link for service and complaints, available at the press of a button.

And, of course, if ridership increases it will be a huge win.

That part is clear. GPS technology is cheap and easily available now. Most cellphones possess a GPS chip. Putting one or two on each bus would not be remarkably expensive. Creating a link to a central computer could be accomplished easily as well, either using wireless access along the routes (which could perhaps be extended so that riders could access the internet) or at worst by access points at each stop.

The real technology would be the software, which could provide:

1. A real time map.
2. The location of buses on any route.
3. Accurate ETA for any specific stop.
4. Estimated trip time, including transfer connections.

Completed paradigm shift in how bus routes are setup and maintained. Would make better use of big data, crowd-sourcing, and GPS tracking.

Lower overall transit cost, shorter busing times, increased ridership.

Applications in statistical analysis, way-finding algorithms, big data, and crowd-sourcing.