We're a diverse group of mobile and web developers, transit enthusiasts, urban planners, and citizens who all share a passion for helping to improve New York's transportations network.

OpenPlans, a non-profit organization working to improve cities through technology and smart urban policy, is coordinating the effort to engage with the MTA in a positive and constructive manner.

We want bus, subway, and train schedules and route information. The data we want is the same master data that the MTA uses for generating the printed schedules. There's lots of other data that might be useful as well, but schedules and routes could be made available immediately, and would provide the greatest immediate gain.

We love New York and want to help make its transportation system even better.

One thing to be clear about is that we're advocating opening up the raw schedule and geographic data, and not the MTA's copyrighted maps, trademarks or branding that form the basis of their revenue from sales of official merchandise and other licensing activities.

The best way to make sure that developers only use accurate data is to provide official data in an accessible, up-to-date form.

Presently, application developers get their data from a variety of sources: some submit FOIL requests, some write scripts to "scrape" data off of agency websites, some have licensing agreements with the MTA, and still others compile it on their own. This system is bad for all involved, as it introduces possible inaccuracies and is time consuming and cumbersome. Even those who have official licensing agreements with the MTA can currently only receive updates on CD-ROMs sent via the postal mail. Not only does this mean there will always be a delay in getting new data, it places an undue burden on MTA employees to prepare and send out updates.

Worse, with data coming from multiple sources and being compiled in a haphazard way, mistakes are much more likely. These errors are then unfairly blamed on the MTA, even for data they did not prepare.

Luckily, there's an easy solution: A single, always updated GTFS feed made available online by the MTA would solve all of these problems. Given high-quality, free data, developers would have no incentive to use any other source but the official feed from the MTA, and changes could be pushed out in seconds rather than weeks. Even better, it would cost the MTA virtually the same to provide the data to 100,000 developers as it would to provide it to one.

Good question. It is certainly a concern that transit agencies don't get blamed for other people's poor products or inaccurate data.

One approach is to clearly distinguish between MTA and third-party services, by adding a clear disclaimer, for example, "this application is in no way affiliated with or endorsed or approved by the MTA."

Yes. Many agencies have opened up their data. Google maintains a listing of official feeds from transportation agencies.

As the above link shows, the trend is towards agencies being less -- not more -- restrictive about the use of schedule data. If New York fails to act, it risks falling further behind the rest of the country.

Not necessarily. In many cases, opening up data is a policy decision that could be implemented with little or no capital investment. However, we fully recognize that certain forms of transit data are not currently available in any electronic form, due to operational constraints. We propose starting by opening up the data that is presently available, then working towards building more complete data sets.

Further, releasing data should yield tremendous economic value for transit agencies and New York in general. Across the country, as other agencies have begun working with developer communities and opening up transit data, application developers have generated added value at no taxpayer expense. Even in relatively small cities like Portland, dozens of third-party applications have been written that make public transit easier to use and more attractive to riders.

With nearly 20 million citizens, an unparalleled transportation network, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit, New York is poised to benefit more than any other part of the country from opening its transit data.

We think progress is made when people come together, honestly discuss their goals, and work cooperatively to reach mutually beneficial solutions.

If you're an MTA employee, a mobile or web developer, or a New Yorker who cares about improving transit, please join our meetup group and attend our next meeting. Our goal is to help clarify the issues, concerns, and benefits of open transit data, so that the MTA can implement a successful open data strategy.

Please email us with your thoughts and feedback.