The World’s First “Transit Appliance”

This is just too cool. At Rail-volution, Chris Smith from Portland Transport debuted what he is calling the world’s first “Transit Appliance.” It can deliver real-time transit arrival estimates to a display in your home, coffee shop, library or, well, anywhere frequented by transit users.

Drawing upon a number of open source software components, the open hardware “Chumby” platform, and publicly available transit data from Portland’s TriMet & NextBus, a successfully hacked device can transmit arrival times to transit riders wherever they may be.

Chris says that the appliance can be delivered for less than $200 and works anywhere a WiFi connection is available. For more info contact him directly at chris [at] portlandtransport [dot] com.