Métro : user guide

Contents

Version
Updates
Registration
Installation
 User Guide
Strange behaviours
How it works
Acknowledgements
History
How to contribute

Version

This version of "Métro" is numbered 3.0.2. Always check on the "Tatami et Bouts de Ficelle" web page (in english) that you got the latest release.

Updates

Métro is frequently updated (about every other week). If you want to be notified of new releases, you can subscribe to our mailing list : .

Registration (kinda')

If you like this software, don't forget to send us a mail (to Patrice Bernard & Frank Van Caenegem), it is our only reward for this work and it does not cost you a penny, does it ? You can also send your comments and suggestions or even tell us about any bug you may discover (Patrice for the Palm program and Frank for the PocketPC program and network data).

You are free (and encouraged) to redistribute this software through any channel provided that: (1) the program has not been modified in any way and (2) it is offered free of charge. As usual, this software is provided "as is" with no warranty of any sort.

You could (and should!) help us make Métro better: see §History.

Installation

Attention! The city databases from versions older than 2.2.0 cannot be used with this new release. It is recommended that you delete any version of Métro older than 2.2.0 before installing this one ("Memory" icon on your Pilot, then "Delete" button on PalmOS 2.0 or option "Delete" in system menu "App" on PalmOS 3.0).

Attention! Some files in this package contain text with accented and other special characters that may not be supported in certain localized version of the PalmOS (japanese, chinese, russian, ...). In this case, you should download the "international" Métro package: "metro-int.zip".

You should have received "Métro" as a compressed file named "metro.zip". This file contains the software as well as all the subway networks (more than 150 of them):

Programs & Directories Notes
metro.prc Program in french
metro-en.prc Program in english
metro-de.prc Program in german
metro-nl.prc Program in dutch
metro-sp.prc Program in spanish
metro-it.prc Program in italian
metro-pt.prc Program in portuguese
metro-se.prc Program in swedish
metro-da.prc Program in danish
metro-vn.prc Program in vietnamese
metro-eu.prc Program in basque
metro-ca.prc Program in catalan
all/*.pdb All the subway networks
gr/*.pdb Greek networks (to use with Intergreek)
ru/*.pdb Russian networks in cyrillic (to use with CyrHack)
nordic/*.pdb Danish, Finnish, Norwegian & Swedish networks with local sort order (to use with SortingHack activated, for "nordic" Pilots)
PocketPC/*.exe Program for PocketPC: select the version corresponding to your CPU

Networks list (most are subways, some of them contain streetcar or train lines as well):

Argentina
Buenos Aires

Armenia
Yerevan

Australia
Melbourne
Sydney

Austria
Salzburg (2)(8)(9)
Wien (8)

Azerbaijan
Bakou

Belgium
Anvers/Antwerpen
Bruxelles/Brussels (1)

Belorussia
Minsk

Brazil
Belo Horizonte
Brasilia
Porto Alegre
Recife
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paulo

Bulgaria
Sofia

Canada
Calgary
Edmonton
Montréal (8)
Toronto (8)
Vancouver

Chile
Santiago

China
Guangzhou
Hong-Kong (10)
Pekin
Shanghai
Tianjin

Colombia
Medellin

Croatia
Zagreb (2)(8)

Czeh Republic
Liberec (2)(9)
Pilsen (2)(9)
Prague (2)

Denmark
Copenhagen (2)(4)

Egypt
Cairo

England
Birmingham
London (2)(8)
Manchester
Newcastle
Sheffield

Finland
Helsinki

France
Brest (9)
Grenoble (8)(9)
Lille
Lyon
Marseille
Montpellier
Nantes
Orléans (8)
Paris (8)(12)
Paris BUS (9)
Rennes
Rouen
Saint Etienne
Strasbourg (8)
Toulouse
Tours (9)

Georgia
Tbilisi

Germany
Berlin (2)(8)
Bochum-Gelsenkirchen
Bremen (2)(8)
Darmstadt (8)
Dortmund
Dresden
Duisburg (2)
Düsseldorf
Essen
Frankfurt
Hamburg (6)(8)
Hannover (2)(8)
Hildesheim (9)
Karlsruhe
Köln-Bonn
Krefeld

Germany (cont'd)
Leipzig
Magdeburg (8)
Mainz (9)
Mülheim-Oberhausen
München (2)(8)
Nürnberg
Rhein-Neckar (11)
Stuttgart (2)

Greece
Athens (13)

Hungary
Budapest

India
Calcutta
Chennai
Mumbai

Iran
Teheran

Ireland
Dublin

Israel
Haďfa

Italy
Catania
Genova
Milano (2)(8)
Napoli (8)
Roma
Torino
Venezia (2)

Japan
Fukuoka
Hiroshima (8)
Kyoto
Nagoya
Osaka
Sapporo
Sendai
Tokyo-Yokohama (5)(8)(10)

Korea
Inchon
Pusan
Seoul (7)
Taegu (7)

Korea (North)
Pyong Yang

Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur

Mexico
Guadalajara
Mexico
Monterrey

Netherlands
Amsterdam
Den Haag
Rotterdam

Norway
Oslo (2)(4)

Philippines
Manille

Poland
Warsaw

Portugal
Lisboa

Puerto Rico
San Juan

Romania
Bucarest

Russia
Ekaterinburg
Krasnoyarsk
Moscow (3)
Nijni Novgorod (3)
Novosibirsk
Saint Petersbourg (3)
Samara

Scotland
Glasgow

Singapore
Singapore

Slovakia
Bratislava (2)

Slovenia
Ljubljana (9)

Spain
Barcelona
Bilbao
Madrid (8)
Valencia

Sweden
Göteborg
Stockholm (4)(8)

Switzerland
Basel
Bern (2)
Genčve (9)
Lausanne
Zürich (8)

Taďwan
Taipei (10)

Thailand
Bangkok

Tunisia
Tunis

Turkey
Adana
Ankara
Istanbul
Izmir

Ukraine
Dnepropetrovsk
Kharkov
Kiev

United States
Atlanta
Boston (8)
Chicago (2)(8)(12)
Cleveland
Dallas (8)
Detroit
Jacksonville (2)
Los Angeles
Miami (2)
New York (2)(8)(12)
Philadelphia (2)(8)(12)
Portland
Saint-Louis
San Diego
San Francisco
Washington-Baltimore (8)

Uzbekistan
Tashkent

Venezuela
Caracas

Notes : (1) Brussels exists in french (bruxelles.pdb) and flamish (brussels.pdb); (2) operating time-aware networks; (3) cyrillic version available; (4) "nordic" sort order version available; (5) the Tokyo networks goes far beyond the city limits (more than 100 km!); (6) the S2 line is missing in Hamburg because it runs very infrequently; (7) korean version available; (8) "Places of Interest" included; (9) Bus network; (10) chinese version (big-5) available; (11) The Rhein-Neckar database contains many cities, among them Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg; (12) "extended" versions available (paris-ext.pdb, newyork-ext.pdb, philadelphia-ext.pdb & chicago-ext.pdb), including the complete suburban railway network (install only one of the files); (13) greek version available.

With the installation utility (HotSync) you got with your Palm Pilot, select one and only one version of the software (.prc files) and at least one subway network (.pdb files). Then "synchronize" your Pilot.

When "Métro" is installed on your Palm, launch it (through its icon), go to the "Options" menu and select "Network". In the list, select the network you want to use (if you loaded more than one) and confirm your choice with the "OK" button.

User guide

1-picture guide

Route search

In some cities, you can search a site instead of a subway station (how do I go to the Eiffel tower, for example). These sites appear in bold in the stations list.

Back

The (back) button is a simple way to compute your route back from Arrival to Departure without having to enter the names of the stations again.

Clear

The (clear) button resets the "Métro" GUI : it clears the departure and arrival station, the stations list and the result field. It also optionnally resets the current time.

Timing

This feature is available only with some of the databases. When using these cities, the day of the week and time are displayed on screen. You just have to "tap" these fields to change your travel time. The (clear) button can optionnally reset the current time.

On the current day and time, some lines may not operate; "Métro" takes this into account to compute a route.

Lines

The "Lines" popup list gives you the list of stations for any line. You may click on one of these stations to enter it in the "From" or "To" field (depending on the one where the caret is). Arrows (up or down) before the name of a station denotes a stop in only one direction.

In cities where the operating times are managed, some lines may not operate on the selected day or time. In this case the line name is crossed out in gray in the list.

You can also select your own closed lines (if temporarily closed for example): with the stylus, just "cross out" the line name in the list (draw a neat horizontal line from left to right). Repeat the action to cancel your choice. When a line has been so closed, its name is crossed out in black in the list (not to confuse with the time management above). This feature is a work in progress: the personal closed lines are not saved between uses.

Interesting places

In some cities, the database contains a list of "Interesting places": the program can give you directions to go to these places, just as for a station. To see the list, "tap" on the (sites) button next to the line popup. The button is grayed out if there are no interesting places in the current database.

Address

You may have noticed a small icon next to the line popup: you can use it to get the subway station of one of your contacts. When you "tap" on the button, a list is displayed containing all the contacts in your address book with a "metro" field. If you select one of the names, its subway station is entered in the "from" or "to" field.

For this feature to work, you'll have to create a cusom field named "metro" (case insensitive) in your address book and fill this field for your contacts. Check your device user's guide to learn how to do this.

Results

When you "tap" on the (go) button (or enter the linefeed graffiti in the "to" field), the calculation starts. If it's taking some time (more than about 2 seconds), a progression bar is displayed on screen. You can "tap" on it to stop the search, you'll get the best route calculated so far.

After a search, the results lists displays 1 or 2 different routes for your request: the shortest route and the route using the least number of connections. If they are the same, only the shortest is displayed. Sometimes, both may take the same time and number of connections but have some difference.

Tap once in the results to copy to the clipboard. You can then paste it in a memo or a mail.

Informations

The button (informations) shows informations on the selected city, along with the names of the people who contributed to the database.

Options

Preferences

In the "Options" menu, the "Preferences" item has 3 choices :

For those who don't know how to access the menus on their Palm, check the silk-screen button bottom-left of the graffiti zone... And take a break to read your device user guide :-)

Network

The "Network" option shows the list of cities you have installed with "Métro". Select one city in the list and tap the "OK" button to look for a route in that city subway. Or use the "Delete" button to erase the selected database from your Pilot's memory (you cannot delete the database currently in use).

Another button appears in the window when the soft is installed on a Pilot with an IR interface : "Beam". Using it, you can transfer a database from your Pilot to another one where "Métro" is installed. The actual transfer is realized only if the database you send is not already present on the receiver.

You can also access the "Network" option simply by "tapping" on the city name in the "Métro" main form title.

Strange behaviors

In some instances, you may think the behaviour of the software is not correct. It is possible that it is a "feature" (more or less voluntary). Here are the known cases :

If you have ideas for making "Métro" better of you find other errors, let me know about it.

How it works

Computing

A little explanation on the inner workings of Métro to help you understand its current limitations.

To compute the best route, the program uses an estimate of the time needed to run each route. But to avoid filling the memory with too much data (the timetables), the times used are quite simplified.

There are only two variations: one average time for a travel between 2 stations on a subway and one average time between 2 stations on an express or streetcar line. For example on Paris, the times used are 1'30 for the first (subways) and 3' for the second (RER and streetcars).

For the connections, it's just about the same: one time for a "standard" connection and one average time for a "long" connection (between 2 different stations or to an express line, to account for the longer wait). Again for Paris, values are 4' and 8'.

This method, though quite efficient most of the time, brings its limitations (but I'm working on some of them): travel times on express lines are computed with all the intermediate stations (express lines not being yet known to the program) leading to over-estimation; the soft does not make a difference if a line is more frequent than another, so that it may suggest a low-frequency line when there is a better one for the same route.

This point is what makes Métro less adequate for streetcars, railroads or buses (these having other peculiarities making them difficult to use in Métro).

Lines

In the subway lines display, you may have noticed some blank lines and stations listed twice or more. This marks a line with diverging branches.

5 good reasons to use "Métro"
("fair" competition comparison)

  1. The route computing is fast (enough): about 15s for the longest computation and less than 5s in 95% of the cases for the huge Tokyo network; 4s at most and less than 1s in 90% of the cases in Paris.
  2. The software uses little of your (precious) Pilot's memory.
  3. All the networks are as complete and up-to-date as possible: 340 stations in London, 457 in New-York, 1388 in Tokyo, 543 in Paris (subway & RER), 1120 stops on the Paris bus network.
  4. All the specifics of the Paris subway are taken into account, and much of all the other networks in the world.
  5. For complex requests you will be given a choice between 2 routes.