Check out this screenshot from Hop Around Huntsville showing exactly where the downtown entertainment trolley is located in real time! Click to enlarge. The blue dot is where Dan Nagle, the photographer, and a member of Code for Huntsville, stands with his phone.

Code for Huntsville is a group of engineering volunteers who use civic data to develop tools for residents to better connect with government services, such as transit.

Where is the bus? How much longer before it gets here? Soon, these questions will be obsolete. Transit tracking is a popular solution for riders to know exactly where their bus, shuttle or trolley is located while they wait.

Hop Around Huntsville is the first tool of its type for City of Huntsville transit riders. The developers chose to make a website, rather than an app, so that any phone- regardless of carrier- would be able to access the website using the phone’s browser. No downloading Hop Around Huntsville from incompatible app stores. It is available to anyone with an internet-capable smart phone.

Hop Around Huntsville is currently running as a pilot project, tracking only the FREE downtown entertainment trolley which runs from 5pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. Click on the image below to see the route:

While drinking a coffee at Cup of Everything on the courthouse square, you can check Hop Around Huntsville website on your laptop. Then, step out the front door just as the trolley makes its way around the corner toward you.

Hop Around Huntsville debuted Valentine’s weekend with a pub crawl to bars and restaurants on the entertainment trolley’s route. The event more than tripled typical ridership on the downtown trolley. City of Huntsville Department of Parking and Public Transit intends to advertise the website in hopes to maintain the high level of ridership. They also hope to expand the downtown entertainment trolley route in the coming months.

Eventually, once the pilot project phase is over, Hop Around Huntsville will be expanded to every shuttle bus and route in the system. This way all riders, all week long, can check their bus’ location before braving the rain, heat, or cold at their bus stop for too long. Until then, go out this weekend and Hop Around Huntsville!