What Busses Are Around Me?

GIS now has the answer to the question "What buses are around me?", or alternatively: "What buses will take me directly to point X?" There's a very useful tool that GAM has put on their new website (ammancitygis.gov.jo/transportation) that helps with figuring out what buses/service taxis are near you. Here's a picture to walk through the three steps you need to take:

First, you click on the picture of a globe with a cursor over it in the menu on the right side (I've put a red box around it). If you leave your mouse hovering over the picture you'll see استعلام على محيط النقطة ("Search in the vicinity of the point"). You can then click on any road (and it has to be a road) on the map and a small red circle will appear (I've put my red circle on Zahran Street at 5th Circle, and put a purple box around it). Once you choose your point, the little dialog box on the left has a drop down menu called "Results" (I've boxed it in blue) that will tell you all the routes that go through that point. You can also search specifically by bus, coaster, and service taxi. The routes are still mostly labeled by terminal points, so it's less helpful if you want to get off before a terminal point (you'll need to click through all the routes to see them displayed). When you select a route, it then highlights it in yellow. Above, I've clicked on the Jordan University---South Station route, and now I know that if I'm at 5th Circle, I can get to either of those terminal points, or anywhere along its highlighted route.

A few of the same drawbacks still apply that I wrote about in my last post. The numbers of the buses aren't on this list, which would be helpful for flagging down the right bus. Also, it doesn't help if you need to transfer, at least not that I've been able to see, so it's not yet a full-blown trip panner, though perhaps that feature is somewhere else on the website or coming soon.

Still, this is very helpful if you're trying to figure out what buses go to a certain area you've never been before, or if you want to find out what buses serve your home area or place of work.