Bus-goers, shiver no more. Thiken, a local mobile app and web development company, has released plans for a Fargo MATBUS tracker app.
The app uses MATBUS’ application program interface (API) to track where each bus is at all times. Users select their route and the closest bus stop, and the app will show where your bus is and its estimated time of arrival in real-time.
Kalith Kumasaru, CTO at Thiken, said he thought of the idea after many instances of waiting in the cold for the bus. As a native of Sri Lanka, driving in Fargo’s snowy roads was not something he particularly enjoyed.
“I hated driving in the winter. The roads are terrible,” he said. “I always prefer to take the bus. The only thing I hated was to stay outside and wait for the bus all the time.”
“I thought, there’s got to be something we can do to resolve that,” he said.
He proposed the idea of a MATBUS tracker app to the team at Thiken, then to Julie Bommelman, Transit Administrator for City of Fargo. They began working together on using the MATBUS API and transferring data.
The iOS app, which Kumasaru said took around two weeks to build, is finished. Now they are waiting for MATBUS to stabilize their API, which Bommelman said could take 2 – 3 weeks. She was not immediately available for comment.
MATBUS did not pay Thiken to make the app, nor will Thiken charge for the app upon its release.
“This is just a community thing,” said Thiken CEO Pasindu Withanage. “We just saw a need and realized it won’t take us a long time to do it, so why not do it?”
