Early Bird Transport

Inspiration

As a team, we have found a common problem between us, our families, friends and teachers -- we've all been late due to public transport and this has affected our daily lives in school and work. We are also inspired by living in London as it is "the world’s most historic and iconic public transport city" due to the Underground and double- decker red buses. This shows that public transport is the main way of travelling here and commuters have found that the biggest problem is time.

What it does

Our skill computes how much time it will take for you to go from your starting point to end destination via the Citymapper API. It also allows the user to input what time they would like to arrive at their destination and Alexa will send the allocated phone number an SMS message of what time they should leave the starting point. This reminds the user of what time they should leave in order to arrive to their destination the right time and reduce the chance of being late.

How we built it

We built it using 2 APIs. First we used the Google Geocoding API to convert addresses to latitude and longitude coordinates as this is needed in the CityMapper API to calculate the journey time. We then used the CityMapper API to receive data on how much time it would take from one point to another.

We have also programmed our skill to suggest when to leave the starting address. We did this by asking the user what their desired time of arrival is and deducting the journey from it. We also programmed the Alexa to send an SMS message of the time to the user's phone number.

Challenges we ran into

We faced multiple challenges as this was our first time coding an Alexa Skill and programming in JavaScript. We had problems running the skill, encountering different errors. One of them was our Citymapper API as it does not supply information about the directions of the journey so unfortunately we could not add that feature in.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of working as a team together to create this skill as this is our first time programming with JavaScript and it is also our first Alexa Skill!

What we learned

We learned some JavaScript programming, the use and application of different APIs and also the value of teamwork and fun!

What's next for Early Bird Transport

In the future we hope to integrate directions and weather disruptions into our skill. Alexa could send the directions to your phone as this can help lots of people travelling without internet access as it is saved as a text message. This allows for a more convenient use in places such as the underground. Our other idea includes a weather integration so Alexa can tell the user suggestions on what public transport to take according to the weather (e.g. taking buses instead of walking to stations when raining). We would also love to partner with National Rail nd TfL to allow users to purchase train tickets directly on their Alexa as this will allow them to grab-and-go, particularly useful when running late for events, meetings, etc. A future implementation could also be saved destinations and keywords to trigger that request such as "Alexa, let's go to work/ the gym/ etc. "

Built With

• api
• javascript