MTA Technology

For those jonesing for transit directions on Apple’s iOS platform and not too keen on Google’s full-featured stand-alone Maps app, Samuel Vermette’s Transit app, now available for free, can help full the void. With the 2.0 release out this week, the app features real-time data, offline access and travel packs for those who venture outside the cozy confines of New York. It also comes with a context-aware feature that remembers recent travel routes.

Vermette approached me a few weeks ago after I ran my thoughts on the ideal transit app, and his latest release covers my initial request for real-time tracking better than any I’ve seen. It pulls countdown clock data from the MTA’s subway API and bus tracking from the BusTime API. He informs me that they plan to add above-ground entrance location data and real-time service changes in future releases.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been using the beta version of the app, and the 2.0.1 release is now far more stable. What I like about this app is that it works. It’s intuitive to use, very graphical and definitely worth a spin. An Android version is in the works as well.

With underground wifi, demand will increase for more transit apps. (Photo via Second Ave. Sagas on Instagram)

A thought experiment, if you will, based on the following question: What elements would the ideal transit map contain?

Over the past few years, the MTA has embraced, with varying degrees of success, a mantra of open data. It began with Jay Walder and has continued since his tenure as the MTA has released a whole bunch of information to the public. Some of it, such as turnstile data, helps us visualize ridership patterns while others — BusTime and SubwayTime APIs — help riders track buses and trains in real time. Even as a report from the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA rightly criticized the agency for shuffling its feet on issues such as searchable board PDFs and the like, the MTA has improved in leaps and bounds since early 2009 on open data.

Still, transit apps are rather limited right now, and the MTA, not the best at designing things, has tried to encourage private developers to pick up the slack. This past weekend, the agency along with AT&T hosted a hack-a-thon. It’s part of a long-term effort to reward app makers using MTA data, and as this weekend’s winners walked away with a concept and few thousand bucks, the summer’s winners could earn as much as $40,000 when the dust settles. That’s not chump change for a transit app.

As a sponsor for Capital New York, AT&T filed a puff piece from the hackathon if you want a sanitized version of the experience. Meanwhile, a few developers took home smaller prizes this weekend. Earning $5000 were the creators of Subculture.FM, a web-based app that allows straphangers to identify their favorite subway musicians, find them in the system and buy songs via a QR code. A real-time tracking app called MTA Sheriff took home $3000. It allows riders to submit reports on subway conditions. The third place winners were Accessway, an app that assists visually- or mobility-impaired riders in navigating the subway.

Of that group, the third place winner likely has the most utility. It serves a legitimate, non-frivolous purpose and is seemingly missing from the marketplace right now. Disabled passengers have a tough time getting around the system as it is, and the MTA doesn’t go out of its way to aggregate its accessibility information in an easy-to-find and easy-to-digest format. Still, it’s potential reach is limited by the number of users who need the information.

To me, it seems as though app developers are spinning their wheels a bit. An app about Arts for Transit performers, while kitschy, is hardly going to improve or impact my commute, and that’s what I want from a transit-based app. I need something with information that helps me make decisions and streamlines my ride.

That said, I see the best transit app as offering up the following:

1. Real-time train tracking. Admittedly, this is limited by the fact that the B division has no countdown clocks. Add the BusTime API, and this theoretical app is even better.
2. Above-ground entrance locations. I can never remember where the nearest Wall St. and Fulton St. entrances are. Show me staircase location as the MTA’s neighborhood maps do, and add Exit Strategy’s staircase location as well.
3. Point-to-point directions that incorporate up-to-date service changes.

As far as I’m concerned, anything more is just window dressing. But that’s just my personal preference, and it’s a bit utilitarian. So what do you think? What goes into your ideal transit app? Maybe I’m missing something, but maybe, in an age of ever more complicated devices and apps, we’re just overthinking it.

It is to the MTA’s credit that the agency has been very generous with their data while not releasing too many of their own apps. As the clunky Subway Time interface without momentum scrolling shows, in-house app design is hardly an agency specialty. But with the data and BusTime and Subway Time APIs out there for public consumption, plenty of other developers can pick up the slack, and for the second year in a row, the MTA is attaching a monetary reward to those who design the best apps.

The MTA’s second App Quest competition will kick off May 4 with a weekend-long hackathon. Sponsored by AT&T, the contest features two prizes: a $10,000 award for the best app to emerge from the weekend session and a $40,000 reward for the winner of the long-term challenge. As a prompt, the MTA is seeking apps with some of the following criteria:

• Provide transit visualizations of timetables, service alerts, real-time feeds, and information about capital projects, operations and other vital MTA programs
• Augment in-station way-finding, particularly for people with disabilities
• Integrate MTA services into other application workflows (calendars, e-mail programs, etc.)
• Illuminate, score and personalize the carbon-footprint reductions gained by using buses, subways, regional rail and combinations of those modes
• Leverage the increasing availability of cellular phone service on the MTA network to create data-driven models of train and bus performance and customer flow
• Are creative, functional, and engaging

Already, over 250 developers have signed up, and the event’s organizers are happy with the early turn-out. “The response we have seen from New York City’s tech community to create the next generation of transit apps has been overwhelming,” Marissa Shorenstein, the president of AT&T New York, said. “We can’t wait to see how participants envision riders using their mobile devices to improve their daily commute.”

At the least, New Yorkers are likely to gain access to a wide array of useful transit apps. This is how a transit agency in 2013 should use its open data feeds.

With the MTA’s opening of their countdown clock API stream, Google announced today that it has added real-time subway departure information for seven New York City subway lines to its maps offerings. Those using Google Maps via desktop or mobile can now get live departure information based upon the MTA’s own countdown clocks for the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 42nd St. Shuttle. Eventually, as the MTA figures out how to bring such a system to other train lines, that information will wind up on Google Maps as well. For the Google-phobes among us, there’s always the clunky, yet functional, official Subway Time app.

A 2011 demonstration led by Paul Fleuranges introduced the On The Go kiosks to the subway system. Photo courtesy of New York City Transit.

This story has been making its way through the procurements approval process this week, and with an MTA Board vote in favor of the deal, Transit announced today that its ‘On The Go’ informational kiosk pilot program will soon spread throughout the subway system. In conjunction with two vendors — CBS Outdoor and Control Group Inc. — as part of the pilot’s second phase, Transit will install at least 77 more kiosks over the next few years. Best of all is the cost. The MTA will pay out no money for this arrangement but has the opportunity to draw in some dollars.

The “On The Go” kiosk program launched in September 2011 at five stations in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. These touchscreen devices over travelers information about trips and trip-planning, real-time subway status, escalator and elevator and neighborhood maps. Third-party developers have loaded on apps with related information, and the devices provide news and weather as well.

“Taken together, this is an unprecedented amount of information made available to subway and commuter rail customers. These state-of-the-art customer communications kiosks provide instant information that makes using the transit system more efficient,” MTA Interim Executive Director Thomas F. Prendergast said today in a statement. “The positive feedback we have received via our website or Twitter account has confirmed that our customers have embraced this new technology improving their riding experience.”

To expand the current pilot, the MTA is licensing with CBS Outdoor and Control Group Inc. The two licensees will purchase the kiosks and deliver them to Transit for installation. The MTA estimates that the kiosks will cost around $15,000 each, but as part of this public-private partnership, the licensees will pay these costs. The two companies will then retain 90 percent of the gross advertising receipts until the capital investment in the kiosks is recouped. Once costs are recovered, Transit’s percentage of the receipts will increase from 10 percent to 65 percent. It is unclear how long it will take for advertising to cover the costs of the kiosks, but this program expansion comes at no real cost to the MTA.

With this expansion, CBS and Control Group Inc. will have more freedom to design the touch-screen interfaces and to customize the applications available in the devices. Transit plans to evaluate customer perceptions and the technology while plotting out potential future expansion efforts. For now, the 77 kiosks will be installed in at least 16 new stations, but the order has an option for 43 additional kiosks should the MTA approve.

A screenshot of the On-The-Go version of Subway Time.

Subway Time, the MTA’s subway tracking app that uses data from the system’s countdown clocks to provide real-time train location, is now available on all mobile platforms via the agency’s On The Go website. Prior to today, the app had been available only on the iOS and Android platforms, but the web-based tool — which features a better scroll than the iPhone app — can now be accessed by anyone with a smartphone and a data connection.

“It all comes down to our mantra – Know Before You Go,” Paul J. Fleuranges, the MTA’s Senior Director of Corporate and Internal Communications, said of Subway Time’s latest implementation. “When you have access to real-time information on the go, it makes your trip that much easier, and it gives you the power to work around any problems that might arise.”

To access the interface, mosey on over to http://onthego.mta.info/ and scroll down to the fifth link. The rest is self-explanatory.