# Intrepid Hackers make sense of MTA (MD) Bus Data



## Ryan (Feb 24, 2015)

Not too long ago, the MdMTA rolled out live tracking of their busses, but stopped short of a real GTFS feed that other apps could use, because it was going to be too expensive and they were planning on replacing a bunch of the back end stuff in the future.

The only way to access the data wasn't very good.

Enter some smart people that solved the problem in a day:

https://medium.com/@transitapp/how-we-saved-baltimore-600-000-in-one-day-f8311e487e58


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## Ryan (Feb 25, 2015)

Today, the MTA (somewhat lamely) replies. If it took them 4 years to pull together that crap interface, things are even worse than I thought.

http://marylandtransitadministration.blogspot.com/2015/02/did-civic-hackers-save-mta-600000-in.html



> Our top priority was bringing real-time information to our customers, not making the data out of the interface we created (which makes app development possible) available to the public. Currently, that data is not in a secure enough environment which would allow us to make it publicly available in a responsible way. As any experienced data developer would tell you, we are stewards of this information and obliged to protect and manage it responsibly. But we are working on it.


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## CHamilton (Feb 25, 2015)

Bus pass: Civic hackers open transit data MTA said would cost too much to share



> Maryland agency said it would cost $600K; Chris Whong's team did it in days for $0.


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