When it's time to leave...

• I don't want to mess around with an app.
• I don't want to wait for location services to kick in.
• I really don't want to deal with geofencing.

Enter PushBus, which provides notifications like this:

The data you need to see, constantly updated, with no other bells or whistles.

Your route - Your location - The name of your stop:
Arrival Time: Minutes to Scheduled Arrival?
Arrival Time: Minutes to Predicted Arrival!

The ? indicates a "scheduled" arrival whereas the ! indicates a "predicted" arrival (generally more reliable; not always available; predictions are usually only available for the last 20 minutes of waiting for a given stop.)

• Modern(-ish) Python installation.
• ujson helps, but isn't required.
• a OneBusAway API key.
• PushOver, a PushOver application key, and a PushOver user key.

You'll need a "pushbus.cfg" file with the following structure:

[PushBus]
OneBusAwayKey=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
PushoverKey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PushoverUserKey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I can't include my keys for various reasons; I intend to fix this eventually. (see the Future Work section.)

I haven't quite finished exporting the configuration bits to pushbus.cfg so you'll need to read and edit pushbus.py to set up your stops, routes, and schedule (unless you happen to share my exact preferences.)

Your stop and route comes from pages like this:

[http://onebusaway.org/where/standard/stop.action?id=1_29266]

(note the id=1_292166 above)

If you filter down to a particular route, you might get a page like this:

[http://onebusaway.org/where/standard/stop.action?id=1_29266&route=1_8]

(note the route=1_8 above)

PushBus, depending on your configuration, will send one notification between every one to five minutes during the hours you select. The notification rate is determined by the 7500 requests per month that PushOver caps any single application at (allows you five hours per weekday each 23-weekday month of once-per-minute updates.) Notifications will never be sent more frequently than once per minute.

The below settings are what I use. This prevents PushOver from ever waking my device up (saves on battery and annoyance factor) and just shows the most recent report (and therefore the most relevant one.)

This does cut down on how useful PushOver is for anything else but there's not much else that can be done without writing a native application with a unique push certificate, etc.

• Easy
  • Easier configuration
  • Instructions for Android
  • Notifications when the schedule changes (home/work)
  • Growl/Prowl/Howl compatibility
• Harder
  • Make this a (simple) web service instead of requiring everyone to have a OBA key
  • Simple Web UI to set up schedules and routes
  • IFTTT-based configuration
    • Text IFTTT "pushbus home" - get your home schedule for the next hour
    • Text IFTTT "pushbus off/on" - turn pushbus off/on
    • Text IFTTT "pushbus oof" - turn pushbus off for the day
• Much Harder
  • Exchange and/or Google Calendar integration (see below)
  • Desktop application / integration with Notification Center
  • Remove dependency on PushOver by writing my own app
    • Donations towards an iPhone dev license happily accepted; I might actually kickstart this assuming interest...

I'm not sure whether or not this is a useful idea.

It would not be terribly difficult to use the Google Calendar API to create virtual, moving, appointments that show when the next three relevant buses are expected to arrive. There are lots of cases where this would be great...and many more where it would be terrible. The advantage is removing the dependency on PushOver but I could see this getting out of hand quickly...

• Buses arriving in the past will not be shown.
• Buses arriving more than an hour in the future will not be shown.