GO Transit mobile app designed by Ryerson students

Jason Devoy no longer fumbles with the GO Transit paper schedule.

With a tap and a slide, Devoy can view and “favourite” GO bus and train schedules, look up Union station departure information and set arrival alarms, using the first official GO Transit app, GO Mobile that launched late last year.

“It got confusing trying to figure [out] the weekday versus weekend [schedule],” says Devoy, who uses the app on his iPhone.

Satinder Khosa, who travels daily to Union station from Bramalea GO Station in Brampton, says “the paper schedule wasn’t the best.”

“I had to usually look for the schedule in my bag or pockets.”

The free app, available on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone devices, had about 55,000 downloads in its first month. Up until GO Mobile’s release, only third-party apps were available. (GO Transit publishes its transit information in an open format so that transit enthusiasts and programmers can build their own apps.)

“I can now figure out the best bus or train to take to work,” says Devoy, adding that his favourite feature is the arrival alert that notifies him when he reaches Meadowvale GO Station in Mississauga.

“I like to nap on the train or bus on my way home and it alerts me when I am near my station,” he says.

It is consumer products like GO Mobile that students and graduates design at Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ). Here, six Ryerson students and a recent computer science graduate developed GO Mobile in a partnership with Metrolinx, the provincial transportation agency that operates GO Transit.

The high-tech facility officially opened in April 2010 on the fifth floor of 10 Dundas St. E., where tenants also include Google’s Toronto office. At the downtown hub, students have an opportunity to create and collaborate to transform ideas into consumer products.

There is no cubicle in sight. A flexible workspace with traces of student work on the walls (whiteboards plastered with sticky notes) and even on the floors — a multi-point interactive projection designed by DMZ students greets visitors on the third floor-reception area.

Fourth-year computer science student Damyan Petkov, who also worked on the GO Mobile app, says the experience was nothing like working on a school project.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” he says. “You have to meet all the deadlines and you have to deliver something that is functional and robust. A system that’s capable and can keep evolving down the road.”

Jaspaul Bola, a student in the undergraduate computer science co-op program, designed the web service that hosts bus and train scheduling information for the GO Mobile app.

“We’re at Union station and we see somebody launch the application and it’s like ‘wow, we made that. We were a part of that,’” he says.

Bola knows all too well that in-class projects rarely reach the market.

“A lot of people I know make software in classes and applications for co-ops,” he says. “A lot of those applications never see the light of a day.”

In 2010, the group developed Mobile Transit Companion for Paris Metro riders. The app uses context-aware self-adaptive computing — a system that caters to its user and environment and adapts its behaviour accordingly. Born out of a partnership with Sweden’s Appear Networks, the app was designed for passengers with special needs.

“GO Transit showed interest in similar concepts and allocated a research grant for this to happen,” says DMZ’s associate director Hossein Rahnama, who led the students on both projects.

“Everyone was wondering ‘Why aren’t you doing this at home?’” says Stephen Johns, project co-ordinator for GO Mobile and a recent Ryerson graduate.

“The partnership with Metrolinx let us bring a lot of our work to Ontario, provide benefits for Ontarians and give our students a chance to produce something that becomes a tangible benefit to people riding the GO train.”

Rahnama engaged the students in the full corporate experience — project management, planning and strategy sessions and client meetings.

“DMZ is the highlight of how post-secondary education is changing,” he says.

“A lot of students feel the difference between the corporate world and academia when they graduate,” he says. “These students kept their academic excellence and learned the standards of the corporate world while studying.”

He says that industry partners are key to building an innovative, hands-on learning environment.

“Our goal is to form partnerships with entities that are strategic to the economic growth in Canada and build models that these innovations can help these clusters to grow.”