An Amazon Alexa Skill written in Node.js that informs the user on real-time bus updates for two stops on the Translink Network (e.g.: an inbound and an outbound). I wrote this skill to get real time updates for the bus stops at the end of my street. Inbound bus stop - to city/northbound, and the outbound stop - going south. Using the skill I can plan every morning when to leave for work and minimise the time I spend on waiting for the bus that takes me to the city. The skill uses the real time Translink feed from https://gtfsrt.api.translink.com.au/Feed/SEQ. It does not use bus schedules.
Follow the many articles and documents on how to set up an Nodje.js AWS Lamda Alexa Skill. Here is one for example: https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-skill-nodejs-quick-start
This skill also requires a DynamoDB table that has to be accessible by the Lambda function. By default the DynamoDB Table name is Translink. This can be changed in config.json. You will need to set up a role in AWS with full DynamoDB access (AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess) and set it as the Lambda function's role on the config page (e.g.: lambda-dynamo below).
The Lambda function's config looks like this:
- Runtime: Node.js 4.3
- Handler: index.handler
- Role: Choose an existing role
- Existing role: lambda-dynamo
- Description: Real-time bus updates from Translink
- Advanced Settings: ... Timeout 0 min 30 sec (Make sure you do this as getting the real-time feed from Translink takes time and you run over the 10 sec default usually)
MAKE SURE TO CHANGE config.json TO BE ABLE TO RUN THE SKILL OR DEBUG IT LOCALLY!!! To upload the skill to the AWS Lambda function zip up the contents of the src/ directory with all of its subdirectories. Make sure you have the appId and tableName set correctly in config.json before you create the zip file.
Follow this article to set up local debugging: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/post/Tx24Z2QZP5RRTG1/new-alexa-technical-tutorial-debugging-aws-lambda-code-locally
If you have forked this repository set the following git option on config.json to not show up in the commit list. Do this so you don't commit sensitive info accidentally.
git update-index --assume-unchanged config.json
To undo and start tracking again in case you need to commit the file:
git update-index --no-assume-unchanged config.json
The skill uses an older version of gtfs-realtime.proto file that is converted to javascript using Google's gtfs-realtime-bindings project (https://github.com/google/gtfs-realtime-bindings). I have sourced this working version of the .proto file from http://opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au/forum/t/illegal-value-error-when-decoding-sydneytrains-gtfs-data/149/5 You might need to update and rebuild this file in case Translink updates theirs.