Remix Promises to Streamline Transit Planning

For Next City, Josh Cohen reports on Remix, a software company developing a comprehensive tool for transit planners. "The software allows planners to draw new transit routes on a map and receive a litany of data such as cost and population in real time." The aim is to combine the functions of separate tools like Google Maps, ArcGIS, and Excel into one platform.

The tool started out as the brainchild of Code for America fellows Tiffany Chu and Sam Hashemi, then called TransitMix. "It was essentially a game meant to help people see the costs and challenges of creating new bus lines, but Chu and Hashemi started hearing from planners who were using TransitMix professionally."

Remix uses open source data in its effort to streamline the planning process. "In Remix, planners draw out a new or modified bus line on a map, clicking to add new stops. As they do, the program provides real-time schedule information, data about the number of residents the line would serve, the number of buses needed to serve the line and costs. When you make a modification to the line, the data changes in real time."