Bus Ticker helps users find next bus times quickly in Hamilton from their iOS or Android device. The times are based on the GTFS data set released by the HSR on their open data site.

Note: These instructions are for OSX and some commands vary on other platforms.

Start by setting up a virtual environment for this project:

virtualenv venv --distribute

You must activate the virtual environment in every terminal session:

source venv/bin/activate

Now install all the dependencies for Bus Ticker and freeze them:

pip install Flask SQLAlchemy pytz twilio psycopg2
pip freeze > requirements.txt

Then install all the gems we need to generate static assets:

bundle install --binstubs

Foreman is used to manage running and reloading the server. Create a .env file and put your Twilio credentials in it, with the same key names as in the Heroku deployment section, if you want to use the send to phone functionality in development. To start the server:

foreman start -e .env -f Procfile.dev

Now build and watch the static assets:

bin/guard

First the database plan needs to be upgraded as the database for Bus Ticker contains well over 200,000 rows and that is above the limit of the default Heroku database plan:

heroku addons:add heroku-postgresql:dev

Then generate a full database dump from the local database:

pg_dump -Fc --no-acl -O -h 127.0.0.1 -U postgres -W password nextbus -f busticker.dump

Upload this file so it is publically accessible, say on Dropbox. Then use this dump to restore the production database on Heroku:

heroku addons:add pgbackups
heroku pgbackups:restore HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY_URL '...database dump url...'

Then the authentication credentials for Twilio need to be set as Heroku environment variables:

heroku config:add TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID='See Twilio Dashboard'
heroku config:add TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN='See Twilio Dashboard'

Finally, set the buildpack for the app:

heroku config:add BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-python