A Better Port Authority Trip Finder

iPhone Optimized Port Authority Trip PlannerThe Port Authority of Allegheny County offers an online trip planner that is decent from a functionality standpoint, but the Port Authority’s website in general, to be as definitively accurate as possible, sucks. For example, it’s a table-based layout, the design leaves a good bit to be desired, the site’s homepage fails HTML validation with 65 errors, and it’s awfully slow. Plus, it’s one of the few remaining sites where you actually have to type in www or you get a Bad Request error.

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So I’ve done what I could and nabbed the primary code from their main site and optimized it for mobile phones. Well, for iPhone in particular, but it should work relatively well on any mobile device that’s got an Internet connection. If you use the site on a mobile device other than iPhone, let me know how it looks / functions in the comments.

iPhone and mobile device optimized Port Authority Trip Planner »

Among the improvements I’ve made:

  • Reduced the footprint from around 76kb to 5kb.
  • Eliminated the unnecessary excess such as the menus, footer, and multiple tabs.
  • Made Depart by the default option for planning the trip rather than Arrive at. I typically find myself wanting to leave a particular time more often than arrive at a particular one.
  • Moved a lot of the optional stuff (like number of transfers, maximum walking distance, etc.) down below the submit button.

Hopefully it’ll be useful for people other than myself. If you have any ideas for improving it, let me know. But remember, I only have so much control over what I can do with their code (hence the remaining lack of validation.)

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