L.A. Metro Releases Transit Data to Spur Applications Development and Grow Ridership
In an effort to enable greater public use of Los Angeles County transit planning information and spur transit ridership countywide, Metro (Metro) today officially released transit route and schedule data on its new beta developer web site at http://developer.metro.net/
The agency’s transit data includes route, schedule, and stop information for all five Metro Rail lines and nearly 200 Metro bus lines serving Los Angeles County as well as route and schedule information for Metro’s regional transit partners.
Developers and other interested individuals will now be able to utilize this data for inclusion in new or existing web-based transit planning computer applications, including popular mobile devices such as iPhone and Blackberry. In order to download the data, users must first agree to the terms and conditions detailed on the site.
Transit data for the region will be available as both web services and downloadable data sets.
Metro’s web services, known collectively as the Trip Planner Information Feed, provide transit information for Metro and 65 other carriers within Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernandino and Ventura counties. These web services are designed to be integrated into customized trip planning applications.
The downloadable data sets will be provided in two formats: GTFS (Google Transit Feed Specification), and GIS data. GTFS is the specification developed for use in Google Transit. This data set is a collection of tabular data describing route, stop, schedule, and fare information for Metro’s system. The GIS data is a collection of shapefiles for mapmakers who wish to include a layer of Metro Bus and Metro Rail lines and stops into a map.
“Metro is proud to offer this data in hopes that it will foster a new generation of transit planning tools that will make it even easier for more people to utilize public transit in Los Angeles County,” said Metro CEO Art Leahy. “Developers are coming up with amazing, enterprising products all the time. We’re looking forward to seeing what types of innovative ways they use our scheduling data to get more Angelinos out of their cars and onto buses and trains.”
Metro’s new developer web site is designed to foster a community of developers and others who work with transit data. The site includes Frequently Asked Questions, documentation, example code from Metro and community members, as well as a weblog covering the latest innovations in transit applications. The site will also publish notifications when data updates are available.
With this release, Metro is joining the ranks of other public agencies that have released transit data to the public, including Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (trimet.org), Bay Area Rapid Transit (bart.gov), Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (wmata.com), and most recently DATA.gov.
Metro’s own web site, Metro.net, is still the place where users will receive the most accurate, comprehensive transit planning resources currently available. However, the development community and others will now be able to author custom-made applications that will help people plan their activities around Los Angeles area transit in new and innovative ways.
Metro’s existing online trip planner, which provides connections for not only Metro services in Los Angeles County but transit services in four other counties within Southern California, is now undergoing significant upgrades which should be available later this year.
More information about downloading the data can be found on Metro’s developer web site at http://developer.metro.net/
This is one of a number of exciting interactive developments that will be announced in the coming weeks.
