I wrote this service to detect any transport failure in Singapore. It can also filter off other subject interests from some social media, so we do not need stick to Singapore transport downtime. For now, I am using Twitter, but may expand to other social media.
The running link is here
https://transitdown.herokuapp.com/
I need to state that Singapore do have these services — namely MyTransport app. It will detect when the trains are down and notify mobile users.
Objective in creating this app
- Faster than MyTransport app or official notifications. Passenger usually complain faster than official notifications can put up. In here, I hope that by saving precious minutes by catching this complaints and official feedbacks, passengers can plan ahead and avoid getting caught in traffic jams.
- This can be used for other purposes beside tracking trains/bus down. I can change the filtering and the front page to look for other material , such as certain celebrities, news, even certain profiling of articles in social media (Twitter here).
This is created using Node JS and various libraries.
Main Services
- ExpressJS
- HTTP module
- MySQL
Filters
- Whitelist / blacklist username
- Search words
- Success / Failure words
- Words ban
- Words preferences
The filters are kept in database, they can be easily change if we want to refine or search for a totally different subjects and not sticking to just Singapore transport. I can use it to feed me other news according to filtering criteria.
There are still several issues that I am ironing out. There are still some inaccuracies so I need to monitor it. There is also performance issues. There is a time gap (approximate 5 seconds wait) in getting the feeds. And this only currently work with Twitter, although more are been planned for other social media.
