It doesn’t show routes or timing. Whong’s goal in getting the map up and running was to show that the raw data from the MTA was usable. The map Whong created basically shows how many vehicles are reporting at a given time. Whong now lives in Brooklyn, but complaints about the MTA tracker app on the Baltimore Transit Facebook Group (which he helped create) caught his eye.Īn effort to make the MTA’s bus tracker data more user friendly. The project was spearheaded by Whong, a Baltimore native and open data enthusiast who built a New York City taxi trip visualizer last summer. In the first week, a new map has already emerged. The platform has been anticipated for years, so civic hackers aren’t going to wait 100 days. Many routes didn’t appear to show real-time data. According to the Baltimore Sun, improvements are “years away.”īy releasing a public beta, the MTA acknowledged that there would be issues to work out. MTA reps told Baltimore Brew that those cellular systems are 25 years old.Īt times, buses will drop off the route, and operators have to log back on. GPS was already installed on buses, but engineers had to create compatibility between the tracking software and three separate operator logon systems.
MTA devs have been working for the last year on it. The web app uses GPS to determine arrival times at specific stops. Riders can also sign up for text and email alerts on the site. Last Monday, the city launched a beta version of a tracking program for MTA buses. Over the next 100 days, the transit authority will test the web-based My MTA Tracker for Bus in focus groups made up of employees, riders and others. The program will be available on the My MTA Tracker website. The burning question was whether or not the data feeding the MTA's tracker was consumable by third-parties. To Whong, the bus tracker is a “perfect example” of misplaced priorities by the government. “Let Baltimore’s community of developers and civic hackers worry about building the user-facing apps.” “The MTA should put their energy into improving the reliability of the real-time bus locations, then building a well documented, standards-based open API,” said Chris Whong, a Baltimore-bred civic hacker now living in Brooklyn. That’s great and all, but some civic-minded technologists say the agency is going about it all wrong.
Instead of venturing out beyond the curb to see if the bus is coming, the Maryland Transit Administration wants riders to be able to check their phones.
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