Albert Tatlock Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 22 hours ago, Declan said: I think he means that hopeless Busmann ap that Longwith invested money in before going to the equally useless ziptrip. There's far more to the Busmann app fiasco than you are implying. I know the original developer. IMO Longworth should be subpoenaed to appear before PAC and face a large number of questions...including all types of public transport.. and covering several years of 'decision-making'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craggy_steve Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 22 hours ago, Declan said: I think he means that hopeless Busmann ap that Longwith invested money in before going to the equally useless ziptrip. The Bus-Man app was the product of a competition run by MICTA to utilise a data feed. It was developed for free on the island, and won the competition. It wasn't perfect, it was an alpha test prototype - what do you expect of something developed speculatively by a single developer for free? It did useful stuff which ZipTrip and others did not. Longworth didn't really have much to do with it, if anything DoI appears to have resisted it in preference for UK sourced apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 1 hour ago, craggy_steve said: The Bus-Man app was the product of a competition run by MICTA to utilise a data feed. So basically, the jobs for the boys lead to Bus Man when they could have made the data available to the existing apps. This was a wretched app that never had the functionality it claimed. Too often government (cheered on by corrupt trade associations) fall for fast talking snake-oil salesmen and the public, or in this case the customers. Neither you or Albert are regular bus users, but I am, and as a paying customer I expect services that work. Not some competition winner's half-finished hobby project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Non-Believer Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 1 hour ago, craggy_steve said: The Bus-Man app was the product of a competition run by MICTA to utilise a data feed. It was developed for free on the island, and won the competition. It wasn't perfect, it was an alpha test prototype - what do you expect of something developed speculatively by a single developer for free? It did useful stuff which ZipTrip and others did not. Longworth didn't really have much to do with it, if anything DoI appears to have resisted it in preference for UK sourced apps. Story goes that the developer was dumped on from a great height by IL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craggy_steve Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 1 minute ago, Declan said: So basically, the jobs for the boys lead to Bus Man when they could have made the data available to the existing apps. This was a wretched app that never had the functionality it claimed. Too often government (cheered on by corrupt trade associations) fall for fast talking snake-oil salesmen and the public, or in this case the customers. Neither you or Albert are regular bus users, but I am, and as a paying customer I expect services that work. Not some competition winner's half-finished hobby project. The purpose of the competition was to demonstrate the utility of the new real-time data feeds from the buses. Didn't hear of any commercial providers attempting to participate, and the commercial ZipTrip which DoI went on to use didn't actually utilise the real-time feeds at the time so they didn't know where the buses actually were. No jobs for the boys - but there could have been further development to make a commercial product, and whilst you might not have liked Bus Man there were lots of user complaints that ZipTrip was a big step backwards. Dunno if ZipTrip does actually use the real-time feeds now, I deleted it from my phone, but when I tried it could not even give me buses from Ballafesson to Douglas. Just reinstalled ZipTrip, and it seems it still cant give me that live data reliably - just errored on me. Horses for courses, you didn't like Bus Man. I don't like DoI using UK services without tendering and I don't like typing "Douglas" into ZipTrip etc. only to be offered Douglas in Scotland, or Castle Douglas, or some other totally irrelevant suggestion. I will admit that ZipTrip has improved since the original version, but then perhaps Bus Man would have improved similarly given the same support and I wouldn't have to give my location data to some UK supplier in order to use it. As you observed above, ZipTrip (a fully commercial product) was equally as useless as a homebrew prototype lashed up by a single individual in his spare time for a local competition. So I guess if you want better you'll have to persuade DoI to give you access to the data feeds which they have removed from the public domain, and start programming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 Who actually designs the bus route timetables? Is it an external company...and, if so, do any of the management have any involvement (gain) with/from them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craggy_steve Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 8 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said: Who actually designs the bus route timetables? Is it an external company...and, if so, do any of the management have any involvement (gain) with/from them? It's local, DoI, using software, which produces an export version of the timetable data which is supplied to Ticketer. Don't believe that anyone in IoM / DoI has anything to gain financially, but there was an expressed justification from DoI post implementation of Ticketer / ZipTrip that the IoM bus app should be something that UK residents use. I don't pretend to understand their thinking - if I want to use UK public transport I use a UK app, Ireland I use and Irish app, Germany I use a German app etc. etc. Who is going to think "Oh, I'll get the UK bus app so I can see the IoM bus timetables?" - I guess only those intellectually challenged folk who confuse the IoM with the IoW. To me it's simply another case of UK comeovers into the IoM PS who are still thinking "UK". Personally as a comeover I came to escape the UK...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Non-Believer Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 I liked the Busmann app, found it very useful for finding out where the bus was and work out how long you'd have to wait, never had a problem with it. As opposed to Zippy-thingy which is patently useless and doesn't appear to have any relevance to local journeys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amadeus Posted November 25, 2019 Share Posted November 25, 2019 On 11/22/2019 at 8:24 PM, dilligaf said: I always find the staff at the welcome centre friendly and helpful. Maybe it is your demena/ dementia. I never could spell proppa +1. Never had a problem there, always polite and helpful. Going there more often since Declan tipped me off that reloads in the welcome center are credited to the card immediately, as opposed to the crappy online system that takes ages to actually credit your rides to the go card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted November 26, 2019 Share Posted November 26, 2019 Yeah I never have a problem going there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxdaleliberationfront Posted February 4, 2020 Author Share Posted February 4, 2020 The Unite Union seem to be making some very bold claims that [apparently] Isle of Man Newspapers refused to publish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Down Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 3 hours ago, foxdaleliberationfront said: The Unite Union seem to be making some very bold claims that [apparently] Isle of Man Newspapers refused to publish. Isle of Man newspapers misrepresenting the truth... well I never Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nellie Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 4 hours ago, foxdaleliberationfront said: The Unite Union seem to be making some very bold claims that [apparently] Isle of Man Newspapers refused to publish. Firstly, I'll say that I'm no fan of Longworth, but it's no wonder that he's run rings round Unite, for years, if that is the standard of media release, or statement, they put out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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