Access to transportation schedules has been a hot topic lately. Most recently, iPhone developer Chris Schoenfeld has come in conflict with the MTA over schedule data. Chris wrote an app that uses schedules for Metro-North, and the MTA wants him to pay royalties for his use of the data from both past and future sales of his application. Chris has refused, noting that data under US law is not copyrightable and thus he is legally free to use and distribute it as he sees fit.
A couple of us at TOPP Labs have also run into issues trying to get MTA schedule data. We’re always experimenting with transit-related applications (from bus trackers to trip planners) and public data is integral to many of them. This past March, we requested MTA bus schedule data via a FOIL request. Within a month, the MTA had responded by sending us a CD containing bus route and schedule information for all the New York City Transit bus lines. This data was in an undocumented format, and we set out reverse engineering it with the goal of writing a parser to generate GTFS data (we’ve got the parser working and released it as free software and you can download the GTFS).
Not long into the process, sections of Broadway were closed down for vehicle traffic. As a result, several bus routes were changed, making some of the data the MTA had sent us obsolete.
We wrote to the MTA to try to figure out how best to keep our data up to date. They told us that we must file a FOIL request every month or two and that there was no way to know when the schedules would be updated. But having one or two month old data isn’t of much value to us; we tried sending FOIL requests more frequently but quickly found that this angered the MTA, since their process for fielding a FOIL request is somewhat laborious. Since we’re not interested in making the MTA’s life harder, we stopped and started pursuing other avenues for getting up to date data.
Over the past months we’ve gone back and forth with the MTA several times, trying to find a way to get up to date data. So far, we haven’t found anything mutually satisfactory. But we’re still hopeful that we can find a good solution.
Everyone involved wants the same things. We all want better public transit. We all benefit when reliable data is easy to come by. The MTA benefits because independent developers write applications that make the infrastructure the MTA maintains more valuable for its riders. And this means the MTA doesn’t need to pay to develop apps for the iPhone, Android, Pre, Blackberry, and whatever comes next. Riders benefit because they can access schedules in the way that’s easiest and most convenient for them.
New York has a vast transportation network with complicated schedule data, and it’s inevitable for some errors to slip by. We’ve noticed a few oversights in the data we’ve received (e.g, the S55 shape data is out of date, the schedule data doesn’t distinguish between the M14A and M14D) and would love to help fix them. The net is full of examples of crowdsourcing for correcting errors (“given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”), but there’s not currently a process in place for citizens to submit corrections.
The MTA is understandably concerned about inaccurate or out of date data giving them a bad name. They don’t want riders getting bad data and then blaming them for it, and neither do we. And the MTA doesn’t want to spend all their time responding to FOIL requests. It’s in nobody’s interest to make the MTA’s already tough job harder; as taxpayers, we want to help the MTA be as efficient as possible. As New Yorkers, we want the city to stay on the cutting edge of public transportation.
We think these problems are solvable. That’s why we propose a meeting of the minds. We think progress is made when people come together, honestly discuss their goals, and work cooperatively to reach mutually beneficial solutions.
And that’s why we’re hosting a New York Transporation Data Summit. With beer. While the event will be open to the public, we’ve specifically reached out to MTA employees, open government advocates, application developers, and transit enthusiasts.
Here’s the scoop:
WHERE: 148 Lafayette St, NY, New York, 12th floor (map)
WHEN: Tuesday, August 25 at 6pm
WHAT: Meetup to discuss how the MTA and the developer community can best collaborate.
Please RSVP here.
Please come join us for pizza, beer, and a friendly discussion. There’s also a stunning view of the city we all love.
(This post was written by David Turner and Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock)
Doesn’t Google get the updated data for their maps product? I’m guessing they have enough clout with the MTA to get them to play nice. If so, given TOPP’s cozy relationship with Google, can’t you get the data from them?
-Jeff
Google doesn’t get the data updated on a regular basis either. Take a look at this link: a bus on Broadway
Ahh, bummer. Just a thought…
It’s a good thought, Jeff. You’d think Google of all people would have up to date data.
Has anyone from MTA actually committed to this? Really, I don’t know what their stupid problem is, I don’t even see the point of talking to them. They update their schedule data and distribute to for all sorts of purposes, like printing notices, updating their computers, printing schedules, etc. All they have to do is have a cron process that would dump the most recent data nightly to a feed url – not freaking rocket science. Not that I don’t mind free beer, but really these people are obstructionists. I would FOIL them once a week if I wanted to get into the hassle until they were so annoyed they would publish the data. I really see nothing to discuss.
Did anyone see this?
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/712438?elq=5b9d03516a61444bb04cc5dd9355b4db
It’s about Massachusetts’ Transit System.
I’m checking around to see if I can get anyone from the MTA/NYCT to attend.
The BART system in SF shares their data in a similar way to the Massachusetts system; I also remember seeing that some enterprising individuals have scraped data from the Chicago Transit Authority and made iPhone apps with it–with no retribution. I guess what amazes me is that not only is the MTA not *encouraging* these apps, they’re actively *discouraging* them. Not sure why–they can’t honestly believe they’ll see meaningful revenue from licensing the schedules… as I like to say, “only in New York.”
One more thing…are we aiming to develop an application similar to this?
http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/pids/real_time_arrivals.cfm
@will Yeah, believe me, I understand your frustration. We’ve contacted a few people at the MTA and no one has of yet committed to attending. They are going to draft a policy statement for us, which will at least make it clear where things stand (one of the many problems I’ve noticed is that different people have heard different things as to what the MTA’s current policy actually *is*).
And while I certainly don’t agree with their current policies, I do know there are some people inside the MTA who would like to change things for the better. The best way for us to help them move towards accessible data is to show them how valuable/helpful it would be for *them* if they did so.
In any case, come for the free beer and good discussion. If nobody from the MTA shows up, we’ll still have lots of passionate folks in the room to figure out how best to move forward on the issue.
@sam and @jeff: Yeah, I saw that. It’s pretty awesome. The MBTA seems to really get this stuff.
@sam We’ve been prototyping a real-time arrival prediction app for NYC buses as a side project (http://github.com/novalis/bustracker). I’d love to talk about it with you at the meetup (or you can email me: nicholasbs [at] openplans [dot] org). Interested in helping with it?
Also, please do extend the invitation to whatever contacts you have at the MTA or NYCT. Thanks!
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I just saw this article run in the NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/08/21/21readwriteweb-ny-transportation-authority-cites-schedules-76211.html
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