[HN Gopher] How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018) ___________________________________________________________________ How to deploy software on a moving bus (2018) Author : mpweiher Score : 53 points Date : 2022-03-07 09:59 UTC (13 hours ago) (HTM) web link (engineering.citymapper.com) (TXT) w3m dump (engineering.citymapper.com) | BORG_VS_RESTIC wrote: | zimpenfish wrote: | I worked for a company (back in 2009/10) that was putting LED | advertising boards on the sides of (IIRC) NYC buses with an | embedded PC to control them and report back to base. They were | plagued - CF cards falling out from vibration, dirt and dust, | electrical noise, etc. Needless to say, it was not a success. | mandis wrote: | They were too early would be my guess. In my opinion, embedded | in today's time is easy and robust. Your thoughts? | MisterTea wrote: | > They were too early would be my guess. | | There were rugged PC's available back then for automotive use | (think cop cars and the like). To me it sounds like they did | not spec the hardware properly or installed it improperly. | loa_in_ wrote: | I like the emoji idea. So simple and practical both idea and the | system as well | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | If you already need an app on your phone to use the system... | why not vibrate the phone? The user is likely holding in their | hands to read something (or listening to music with it). I'm | not looking at the display for an emoji... | mrsuprawsm wrote: | https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18662577/citymapper-londo... | | It seems like they gave up on this fairly quickly. | stingraycharles wrote: | I thought they would have given up on deploying updates while | the bus is driving (opposed to only when it's being serviced / | stationed), but it appears like their whole business | proposition didn't work as intended. | | To be honest, I'm usually fairly skeptical to all those "we're | doing the same as X, but we'll use _data_ to make better | decisions!" startups. It's incredibly difficult to validate, as | you usually don't actually have the data until you've reached a | certain critical mass, so you'll end up having to sell the | dream instead. | robbie-c wrote: | They kind of bootstrapped around this quite well. The first | product was a better Google Maps app, which meant they got | people's journey data. I wonder if the real problem they ran | into was just that public transport in London is pretty | excellent, so even with journey data plus the ton of data | that TFL provide, it's pretty hard to actually run anything | better. | traceroute66 wrote: | > public transport in London is pretty excellent | | Really ?!? | | I'm pretty sure most Londoners would disagree with that. | Dirty, expensive, crowded, strikes and signal failures. TFL | doing everything possible to avoid telling the truth, | stating "good service" when everyone on the platform can | see they're having a bad day in the office (again !). | | Compared to the Japan, the Nordic countries, Switzerland, | South Korea, just to name a few, London is dire. | | Look at Japan, specifically Tokyo. More populous and | densely populated than London. Yes the trains can get a | little crowded at rush hour. But I've been visited a good | few times now and I've never experienced the London-style | horrors. Everything is punctual, clean, no strikes or | signal failures. And that's just the Tokyo subway. The | Shinkanzen is simply fabulous. Its great ! | sumtechguy wrote: | When I used to write software like this. We typically had | some sort of 'vpn', it was usually an isolated network 100% | so you did not need that in the first place. For this I would | have used an MDN on an isolated network. We would then write | a solid bootstrap program with a watchdog on an ISR. | Basically it would have an A/B area then we could flip | between them as needed. If a particular version did not come | up on a vehicle we could default it back to the old version. | Usually some sort of flag that said 'yep this version is | solid use it from now on'. Usually also the program itself | could declare itself as bad usually catching itself in the | crash and writing something out somewhere. | | Not 100% as vehicle env is pretty harsh. +/-12V in 1-2 | seconds on crank so you better have something to deal with | that. -40f to +150f so you better have HW that can deal with | that. Worry about how much flash wearing you have left. Oh | and just general bouncing around, kicking hitting, coffee | spills so your hardware better be decently hardened. Even | then you still usually had those 10-20 vehicles that you just | had to touch them. Usually it would be in the middle of | Montana somewhere. If you were lucky it could be at a | terminal. Oh and dont cost too much as your competitors | probably have better and cheaper hardware. | robbie-c wrote: | I wonder how they're doing. Crunchbase | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/citymapper-limited/c... | has a Series B for $40M back in 2016, and a crowdfunder for | PS6.7M in 2021. I can't imagine the pandemic was kind to them. | It's a shame really, I remember they were fairly active in the | London tech meetup scene around their B, usually quite | enjoyable talks. | mpweiher wrote: | Doing great, thanks, despite the pandemic! Still providing | the best routing, hiring (they/we hired me last August), and | now also with an SDK for putting all that goodness into your | own apps: https://citymapper.com/powers | sweezyjeezy wrote: | I remember they had one of the crazier glassdoor pages I've | seen - basically a bunch of disgruntled leavers calling the | CEO a monster, from looking more recently it seems like they | may have made some positive changes. | yen223 wrote: | Based on Glassdoor reviews at places I actually work at, I | have learnt to never take Glassdoor reviews too seriously ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-07 23:01 UTC)