WVU PRT Status - Austin B. Siford

Overview

WVU PRT Status was a service that monitored the real-time status of West Virginia University’s Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system. It included a native Android app that had special support for Google Glass and other Android wearables.

I developed it in a weekend as a side project after quickly realizing the PRT—which is a small fleet of autonomous vehicles that shuttle students, faculty, and staff between campuses in Morgantown, WV—was not as reliable as it claimed to be and often had service disruptions.

Go Backend: https://github.com/AustinDizzy/prtstatus-go
Android App: https://github.com/AustinDizzy/prtstatus-android
Launch Tweet in 2014: https://x.com/AustinDizzy/status/500073287334887424

Reception

WVU Today reported on the app’s launch, and WVU Trademark & Licensing granted me limited use permission of various trademarks for the service’s logo and branding.

At peak the service had over 1,200 users. Users of Android devices were able to receive push notifications when the PRT was out of service or closed at any of the PRT’s five stations.

It also collected weather data from a weather sensor atop Brooks Hall ran by a professor in the Geology Department for additional data points to help determine if there were any potential correlations with PRT service disruptions.

Shutdown

Unfortunately, the University’s Department of Transportation declined to sponsor my ~$200/year service costs and app store developer fees, and my time to maintain the service declined significantly after I left the Univeristy and Morgantown area.

It shut down around the winter of 2018.