This sounds like a combination of Wolfram Alpha-esque search experience with APIs.
But I think this fellow is discounting how much value a good UI/UX is a part of what makes an application valuable. Every transit system out there had some crappy trip planner for a long time before Google Transit came along & replaced them. Star charts get a lot more useful with window-to-the-sky UI in new apps.
Does the NYC subway even have a fixed schedule during most times of the day? It's usually just "go in the station and a train will show up in a couple of minutes."
* Does the NYC subway even have a fixed schedule during most times of the day? *
They do, headways (intervals between trains) vary at specific times of the days (large headways late at night/early morning, small headways during peak transit hours, mid-size headways during the day) and you can use those to compute the schedule. In NYCT's case, they run enough trains that in Manhattan a train comes pretty much every few minutes but in the other boroughs they may run infrequently enough that you'll want to plan ahead.
But I think this fellow is discounting how much value a good UI/UX is a part of what makes an application valuable. Every transit system out there had some crappy trip planner for a long time before Google Transit came along & replaced them. Star charts get a lot more useful with window-to-the-sky UI in new apps.
Does the NYC subway even have a fixed schedule during most times of the day? It's usually just "go in the station and a train will show up in a couple of minutes."