TrainText Twitterbot Help

If you're not able to get your question answered here, please contact us and we'll lend a hand. Expand All

• What transit systems does this work for? Currently, the system only works with BART in the San Francisco Bay Area, but we're hoping to expand. If you've got any ideas on other transit systems, please let us know about it. TrainText.com is not affiliated with BART or Twitter in any way. We're simply enjoying open strategy and developer feeds.
• Do I need to be registered on Twitter to request train arrival times? Yes. Right now the best way to request this information is through Twitter. If you do not have a Twitter account, you will need one to make this work.
• I'm new to Twitter and TrainText, how do I make this work? Ok, here is a quick rundown of how to get started:
  1. Sign yourself up on Twitter.
  2. Inside your new Twitter account settings, setup your mobile phone under Devices. Be sure your Device Updates are set to "Direct Messages".
  3. Follow the @traintext user.
  4. Wait for us to follow you back. This happens automatically, but may take some time. Once we've followed you, we'll send a message letting you know that you can begin requesting train information.
• I followed the 'traintext' user and I'm not allowed to send a direct message. In order to direct message a user, you must be mutual friends. Our traintext user is setup to auto-follow you shortly after you follow it. Sometimes it takes a while, but we've set things up through TweetLater.com. Once the user does follow you back, you'll get a message stating so. Then you will bem able to send your first request.
• I've waited long enough, but your not following me back. What gives? Our apologies, we've setup TweetLater.com and it should be working every 12 hours. If it has been too long and you need us to follow you back, please let us know. Or nudge
• I am not receiving the updates on my mobile phone like you said. In order to recieve direct messages on your mobile phone, you'll have to configure your Twitter account to work this way. First add your phone as a device, if you have not done so. Then set your Device Updates to "On" or "Direct Messages". If you need more help with this, look here.
• What if I mispell the station name? We've build a smart search system so your terms are easily matched, even when typing on a tiny little mobile phone! We're constantly improving the search algorithm, so if your term doesn't match, contact us with your search term and which station you think it should match.
• I have tried different spellings, but it keeps responding with "Station 'xyz' not found."! R U sher yo spellin it rite? Huh?! Seriously though, make sure it's spelled correctly. But if you think it should match or that you've found a bug, please let us know. Try it for yourself and see what works and doesn't.
• Why does the result look funny? The results are abbreviated to keep the message as short as possible so it will fit into Twitter's 140 character message limit. Here is a breakdown of the message and what it means.

  If your station was found, the message will always begins with the Station (W Oak Sta => West Oakland Station). Then after the station name, each train arriving and their next 1-3 arrival times. In the example below, the Daly City train is arriving in 9 minutes and 18 minutes. The Dublin/Pleasanton train is arriving at 7 minutes, 27 minutes and 38 minutes. I think you the picture, right?
  W Oak Sta: Daly:9,18 Dub/Plst:7,27,38 Frmt:20,42 Mill:11,29,42 Ptsb/BayPt:15,40,55 Rich:11,31 SFO:15,36,53