The MTA Releases a Dataset, Seeks Dev Input
BY Nick Judd | Friday, July 2 2010
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the budget-beleaguered public authority here in New York State that manages New York City subways and buses, as well as regional rail, released a new dataset today and will be holding an application development contest in the fall, an MTA staffer announced Thursday night.
The MTA, in response to developer request, released a dataset with the latitudes and longitudes of individual subway station entrances, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan announced in a brief post this morning on a Google Group the MTA uses to communicate with developers.
Speaking Thursday night at an event at Eyebeam, the art and technology space in Chelsea, MTA developer liaison Sarah Kaufman said that the MTA would be hosting an app contest in the fall in the style of those already held by New York City and by MTA's opposite number in Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
Open government advocates have held up Boston as an example of how transit authorities can improve service by releasing data for third-party developers to make use of. The argument is that the one-two punch of releasing government data and then holding contests for people to make productive use of that data can do more to benefit riders than going through the government procurement process to hire developers to build specific things.
Meanwhile, the MTA is generally reviled in New York. Decades of a mix of underfunding and apparently lax management are beginning to climax for the public authority as it struggles to manage debts, much-needed capital improvements, and ongoing service delivery.
A small cadre of MTA staff are leading an initiative inside the public authority towards a future where allowing civic-minded hackers more access to data can help the authority do more with less, saving money and hopefully improving services.
And the MTA is embracing social media as one approach to trying to improve its image, taking to Twitter and Facebook, Kaufman said.
I've heard about this firsthand, in fact. My roommate railed against the MTA in a Facebook post earlier this week when the subway line he took to work earlier this week was delayed, and used a complaint form on the MTA's website to let them know personally. An MTA official responded to explain why my roommate's train was delayed, which impressed him enough that he updated his earlier harsh words.
That's exactly their strategy, as Kaufman explained it — hoping that good customer service will generate positive comments to overrun the negative ones.
In recent months, under its new president, Jay Kaufman, the MTA has also made a concerted effort to reach out to the developer community in New York. It held an unconference for developers recently, and, on July 14, will host an event seeking developer input concerning SIRI, a European protocol designed specifically for the real-time exchange of data about public transport services and vehicles.