Lightweight Javascript-free HTML flip phone client for NYC MTA Subway Train arrival times
The official SubwayTime website at http://subwaytime.mta.info/index.html#/app/home (defunct May 2021, https://new.mta.info/nearby is even slower) is too bloated. It uses a modern huge Javascript framework. Does not scroll with up/down key presses on modern desktop browsers. Does not work on smartphones older than 3 years (like my Windows Mobile phone). Does not work on dumb phones. Too slow to use over 2G cell networks. Its UI takes too long to find the correct station. “goto your appstore and get a real subway time app” is not a solution if you have an old phone that does not have an appstore anymore. I have never seen any not-an-app web-front end for subway time arrival data except the MTA’s official http://apps.mta.info/traintime3/index.html#/app/home and http://boerumhillscott.com/transit/ (not real time AFAIK).
Tinymta uses the thinnest, oldest web standards (ES3/HTML4), so it works on almost every web browser in history. The recommended browser is any browser with Javascript support from 2001 or newer. In reduced functionality mode (no Javascript mode), it will work on any HTTP 1.1 HTML browser (after about 1995). It works with any dumb phone or flip phone made in last 15 years. It doesn’t work with NCSA Mosaic because that only supports HTTP 1.0 and doesn’t send a Host header.
Regularly tested with Internet Explorer 6 (2001), Openwave 7 (2004 flip phones), Android 4 pre-Chrome ASOP browser (2012), and a ZTE Z233 4G LTE flip phone (a poorly designed Chrome 45 internally).
Tinymta gets its arrival information from the same server as https://new.mta.info/nearby. If the MTA’s server is slow, unresponsive, or down, both Tinymta and the official MTA “Nearby Stations & Stops” website equally do not work.
This client/website was intended so that you download the zip file and use the HTML pages from your own phone’s internal storage (disk) and not from the web through a http:// address. Although this website runs perfectly from http://tinymta.com or its slightly slower backup host http://site.tinymta.workers.dev/, it will be faster and more reliable if you run it from your phone’s internal storage, especially on flakey 2G cell networks. Internal storage is faster, since the Refresh function will still call the tinymta webserver to check if the locally cached copy has changed or not (HTTP 304). Some older browsers will always refetch the tinymta HTML because of poor and old HTTP cache header support.
On flip phones, pressing 0-9 on your keypad triggers menu options to open. Saves your fingers versus using Up/Down/Enter to pick links. Only the http://tinymta.com has the numerical shortcut key hints on the left side but 0-9 shortcuts work on all dumbphone pages. Just try them on any page ≧◠ᴥ◠≦✊
Typically, to run this site from phone internal storage, you only need 3 files: stations.htm, stop.htm and stop_.htm. Put all 3 files in the same folder. Open stations.htm on your phone. Navigate to your station.
Note: In all views, in all browsers, in all configurations, all arrival time updates must be triggered manually (pulled). There are no timers anywhere in the site. Use the in-page Refresh link or your browser’s native refresh, or, as a last resort, Back, then click the station again.
The 2nd line of stop.htm has generation time of the Arrivals data on the MTA server. If you refresh the times, the generation timestamp can still be the same, since the MTA server only updates the timestamp when a train moves positions. Late at night, a couple of minutes can go by without the data changing. During rush hour, it should update every 5-20 seconds. If the time stamp seems stuck for more than a minute and it is not late at night, you have a caching problem in your browser or somewhere in your cellphone network (WAP Gateway).
via CORS and via JSONP refer to how the arrival data is fetched from the MTA server. This is just a diagnostic aide. Depending on how old your browser is, the page will communicate through CORS or JSONP. CORS is newer/better/modern. JSONP is older. CORS is better, since errors will appear in a popup box with the reason, if it fails to communicate with the server or the server sends back a failure response. CORS handles caching better and is very slightly faster than JSONP. In an error condition, JSONP silently fails and the arrivals data is just never drawn.
Cur Sta means Current Station. Some not-yet-officially supported stations have incorrect, strange, or no name at all in the MTA’s database.
Refresh Fast update arrival times, Fast avoids 1 network call compared to Slow, so on 2G networks Fast is a tiny bit faster than Slow.
Refresh Slow update arrival times, reloads entire page. This is more of a diagnostic tool. You should use Fast, unless you are having problems with old arrival data, or no updates, or incorrect redrawing.
OBSOLETE All stations report data in 2021.
Tinymta can fetch the arrival information for stations on routes that the MTA does not yet officially publish arrival time information. Either the server returns Realtime data is currently unavailable for this station or no trains in either or both Uptown/Downtown directions. Above-ground station reporting is almost none-existant. The departure times from Terminals are also flakey and often represent ghost trains that exist only on paper and failed to depart on-time or get cancelled.
Tinymta includes 5 implementations.
stations.htm Single page design for touchscreens, requires Javascript and Internet Explorer 6 (or anything with JS)stationsnojs.htm Single page design for touchscreens, no Javascript, shows same arrivals data as JS version but its slower, and slightly less featuresrt.htm split page design for dumb phones, no Javascript, uses a Cloudflare Worker to draw XHTML Basic “Mobile Profile” pages for Openwave 7js/rt.htm split page design for dumb phones, requires Javascript and Internet Explorer 5 (or anything with JS), Opera Mini, 4G dumb flip phone browsers like KaiOS or Cymbal OSAll split page implementations implement 0-9 hotkey navigation. 1 is 1st link. 9 is last link. 0 is More link. No Back link since that is probably a soft key in your mini-browswer. You can try to memorize the numeric code of your favorite stations to enter on your numeric keypad. Not all smartphone browsers (Opera Mini) support hotkey navigation, blame the browser vendor. Openwave and ZTE Cymbal and Kai supports hotkeys.
Single page view does not have hotkey navigation.
Tested with:
stations.htmstations.htmrt.htmraw/rt.htmstations.htmjs/rt.htmstations.htmstations.htmstations.htmrt.htmhttps://github.com/bulk88/tinymta
Web/customer facing files are in docs directory. stations.htm and the single page implementations are usable from root or from docs. Serve over the web only the files in docs. Root directory shouldn’t face the web. A bunch of perl scripts convert the GTFS files into html files. Also Node.js and html-minifier https://github.com/kangax/html-minifier are used in the build process. To build docs run nmake all on Windows in root directory. Always run nmake all before commiting to the repo.
docs directory is only git tracked for GitHub Pages. You can delete it and run nmake all and all the files will be recreated. The authoritative files are in root directory.
Hint, disable the html-minifier in grmp.pl when doing development, it adds many minutes to the build. Reenable it at the end.
To be determined.
Daniel Dragan (bulk88@hotmail.com)