Can’t Get the Trip Planner to Work

It is quarter past six Wednesday morning.

I have to be at Downsview Subway Station passenger-pickup at 10:30.

I know it takes about an hour to get there, and I don’t want to keep my friend waiting, so I check the online 49B bus route and reckon to catch the 9:22 bus from here.

I see that TTC has a “Trip Planner” link, and for five years or more I’ve been using Mississauga Transit’s Trip Planner , so I decide to give it a whirl.

In the “from” box I type my street address “4340 Bloor Street West”, for that is where I live.

In the “To” box I type “downsview subway station”, for that is where I want to go; I don’t want to go to a street address near the subway station, just to the subway station.

I change the details to read “Arrive at 10:25 AM”.

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! CantGet001.png

I click the red “NEXT” button and am greeted with:

Visit www.ChrisGreaves.com for this image! CantGet002.png

Apparently there is no such place as “Downsview Subway Station”!

I find this odd.

I note that the TTC has changed my address to “Etobicoke”, although all five cities were amalgamated (“ The new City of Toronto was created on January 1, 1998 ”) 13 years ago. Strictly speaking my address is “4340 Bloor Street West Toronto”.

This suggests to me that the TTC is making use of a very old database.

I’ve been telling computers what to do for over 40 years, and I am surprised that, even if the TTC had to clone a database, it didn’t see fit to fix the errant city names. It’s not a complex task.

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