I know the sport of "blame Metro" is third behind the Skins and Caps in popularity in this town (heck, I even called them out), but why has nobody called out the suburban systems and even Circulator on this too? They could scoop Metro and make them look even worse than they are but instead they haven't for the most part?

If Metro gave up the ghost and signed up with Google tomorrow, this still would raise the question of when or if the suburban agencies would join and that could be a problem for inter-jurisdictional areas.

by Jason on Aug 6, 2009 11:54 am  

Alexandria's DASH is already in. I've heard from ART (Arlington) unofficially that they have similar legal issues as Metro but not the financial ones.

You are of course encouraged to contact your local transit agency and ask why they're not in. I don't think I'm going to contact 9 jurisdictions and 14 transit providers.

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 12:02 pm  

hey metro: pay me $5000 as a consultant and I'll save you half a million dollars. You won't make money off scheduling data. Thanks. Easiest budget item ever.

by charlie on Aug 6, 2009 12:09 pm  

Does it really cost half a million dollars to conduct a study to see if WMATA can make money off something that every other transit agency gives away for free as a service to their customers?

by Erik on Aug 6, 2009 12:10 pm  

WMATA's right about the trip planner vs. Google Transit but that is the answer to the wrong question, what matters is that users choose their own sources of information, and whether or not Google Transit is better than Trip Planner (mostly it isn't) for DC trips doesn't matter for the people who choose it.

There is an old book on direct marketing that is very good called _Maxi-Marketing_ and the point it raises is that you maximize the utilization of multiple marketing and sales channels to sell the most. (Or look at Christensen's work, _The Innovator's Dilemma_. WMATA is damned either way.)

The issue of whether or not WMATA can adequately monetize trip planner is another question.

We should know that they aren't likely to be very good at doing it, given how well transit is leveraged for advertising sales as it is. They should just accept it. If there are particularly successful transit systems out there doing so, let us know. I haven't seen any good examples, although that doesn't mean much, since I haven't systematically evaluated other transit system websites on this particular criterion.

What WMATA has to decide is whether or not making riding easier matters more than possible miniscule advertising revenues. In this case, I think the former is more important.

by Richard Layman on Aug 6, 2009 12:15 pm  

Somebody clue me in here - I'm sure that I shouldn't take WMATA's "Google could use our data now for free" talking point at face value. Is there maybe a past post that explains the restrictions Google is balking at?

by Jake H. on Aug 6, 2009 12:22 pm  

Disregard my last comment - I missed the hyperlink to the discussion of the license in the post.

by Jake H on Aug 6, 2009 12:23 pm  

Half a million dollars to find out if a bus schedule is worth money?! Are you kidding me?

The consultant-fetish has got to end. They are the biggest sellers of snake oil around. I am certain that the final recommendation will include undercoating.

Even if you were paying 300 dollars an hour to this expert, you're still talking about 1,666 hours of work to reach that total. This should be an analysis that takes an expert less than 100 hours to figure out.

Or better yet, how about just one day, which should consist of calling up other transit agencies to see what they do.

by Reid on Aug 6, 2009 12:28 pm  

Charlie: You mean they can save $495,000 :)

Erik: It may or may not cost that much money, all I know is that the latest approved WMATA budget contains a line item matching WMATA's description and the amount in the line item is $500,000. Probably they'll find someone to do it cheaper than that.

Here's the kicker: The consultant is going to have an incentive to tell Metro a big number. If Metro pays the consultant $200,000 to perform the study, what's it going to look like if the consultant tells them their IP is worth $10,000 per year?

Additionally, the consultant will likely tell Metro that Google or other developers could make a substantial chunk of money by hosting ads against the data. They would then imply that Metro should try to negotiate some portion of that revenue.

But let's look at that some more. Google is already not willing to use WMATA's data for free. They know about WMATA's data being available, they've read the license and said, "No thanks". Unless WMATA changes something about the license, what makes them think Google will suddenly decide to pay for the same thing they've refused to take for free?

As far as I can tell, Google doesn't pay anybody for the use of their transit data (pending receipt of a FOIA document from MTA NYC). If WMATA asked for money and Google decided to pay, wouldn't the other transit agencies come to Google and demand payment too? It's for this reason that I believe Google will decide not to partner with WMATA rather than pay. Deciding to pay any of the agencies could be construed as an offer to pay all of them, and Google could end up net negative by deciding to pay.

So the consultant may tell WMATA that their data is valuable to Google or other developers, but they'll leave out the part that if they ask for a fraction of that money, they'll likely get nothing because the developers will bail. They might be able to get some amount of revenue by charging $100 per year for people to write iPhone apps or whatever, but I don't think you're going to get close to revenues that make anything more than a rounding error in WMATA's $2B per year budget. ($100,000 per year is 10 cents per rider for one day, it's not going to make that much of a difference in fares).

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 12:30 pm  

Speaking of leveraging advertising sales - when I ride the Red Line home today, I will likely see a poster for the DC Hip Hop Theater festival (July 6-12) at Cleveland Park Metro, the Capital Fringe Festival (July 9-26) in the car and some movie that opened in February on the fancy moving display between Metro Center and Gallery Place.

When they want to run advertising on the Trip Planner site, their best bet will be to turn to ... Google Ads.

by HM on Aug 6, 2009 12:33 pm  

I argue that the WMATA doesn't have any intellectual property rights over the scheduling data. They are a public agency owned by the citizens of Maryland, Virginia and DC. As a public agency, all of their workproducts are in the public domain.

by Cullen on Aug 6, 2009 12:34 pm  

Also:

What they should do with that $500,000 is to modernize the bus maps! They are living in the freaking stone age with their huge pdf loads of crap. They claim their trip planner is so superior, but when the only map of a bus line is page two of a five page pdf timetable, they fall far behind what Google could do.

by Reid on Aug 6, 2009 12:34 pm  

I agree with you Reid!

Also, half a million dollars could fix all the errors in their own WMATA trip planner.

Ones like:
Plan a trip from Federal Center SW to L'Enfant at 8:00am in the morning. It only reports Orange line trains. Blue line trains don't show up.

Plan a trip from Georgia Ave to anywhere else. All the stations in the trip planner results are clickable, except Georgia Ave.

Plan a trip from Dunn Loring to anywhere. Why must I always walk 0.08 miles South from Dunn Loring to Dunn Loring at the beginning of my trip?

by Erik on Aug 6, 2009 12:49 pm  

Agree w/ Reid. Have better bus maps, Metro. The main reason I would use google transit instead of WMATA's pages is that their maps are actually useful.

by BeyondDC on Aug 6, 2009 12:51 pm  

Hopefully the consultant will also be required to study what the value is to metro of having the information free. Yes metro's info has value, but think how much metro might pay to have here's how you can get from here to there on metro in front of every driver looking for directions.

by ae on Aug 6, 2009 12:58 pm  

I honestly don't understand how Metro can keep claiming that the Trip Planner is useful. It says right on it that you can't enter a full address in the From/To fields. How the hell is that supposed to work?

Whenever I've tried to use it it has never been able to Plan a Trip because it doesn't take the full address of where I'm going to or from. When I put in the fractional address it still doesn't know what it's doing.

The Metro Trip Planner is a piece of garbage.

by James on Aug 6, 2009 1:07 pm  

Cullen, that's not accurate. Only the works of the federal government are exempt from copyright in the U.S. (not including grantees, contractors, works created by others and licensed by the government, works by NIST...).

Basically: if a federal employee creates an otherwise-copyrightable work as part of their job, it's in the public domain. If the same thing happens at a state or local level, the agency in question holds copyright. WMATA's work is copyrighted.

There's two twists. The first is whether raw data (i.e. schedules) is copyrightable, regardless of who created it. Copyright only applies to works with creative/expressive qualities, not mere collections of fact. There's a strong argument in saying that schedule data is free because it's data.

The second twist is, even if WMATA is entitled to copyright under federal law, it's still a public agency funded by taxpayer dollars. There's an ethical argument in favor of open access to public sector information, even where copyright could legally apply.

by Gavin Baker on Aug 6, 2009 1:24 pm  

Gavin, I'll revise my point to agree with you. Workproducts of public agencies SHOULD be public domain.

I wonder if Maryland's Public Information Act requires that the information be made available freely?

Ae makes a good point that WMATA should have to consider the value of distributing the information freely vs. charging for it.

by Cullen on Aug 6, 2009 1:44 pm  

Arlington is working on providing ART schedule data in GTFS format. We hope to have it ready in about a week, and plan to make it available without restrictions. Arlington has no plans to sign Google's partnership agreement, but if Metro's terms of use are the problem, maybe Arlington's data will be picked up.

by Joe Chapline on Aug 6, 2009 1:56 pm  

@Joe: Thanks, know any more details on the terms?

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 2:02 pm  

Terms will be, "here it is, take it." If Google or other developers show any interest, we'll try to work with them if there's anything else they need. I understand that data for the route (as opposed to the schedule) might be needed for Google Transit. That will take more work, but we'll do it if Google expresses an interest.

by Joe Chapline on Aug 6, 2009 2:12 pm  

So something similar to creative commons?

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 2:17 pm  

We don't plan to have any license at all. We'll just make the data available to anyone that wants it.

by Joe Chapline on Aug 6, 2009 2:32 pm  

May I suggest that you apply some sort of license to the data so that it's clear what the terms are, and that the selection of the license be something similar to the modified BSD or other extremely permissive license?

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 2:34 pm  

The best option for this case is CC Zero. It waives any and all rights in the content, and marks it as such -- so even if we think the data is in the public domain anyway, CC0 removes any doubt.

I'm happy to discuss this, pro bono, with any public agency in the DC area. If anyone's interested, drop me a line: gavin@gavinbaker.com.

by Gavin Baker on Aug 6, 2009 2:37 pm  

I'll look into it, but I agree with other posters that the data belongs to the taxpayers, or it should. If you want to discuss offline, email me or we can talk on Facebook if that's working.

by Joe Chapline on Aug 6, 2009 2:40 pm  

@Gavin: thanks, I posted a response to Michael before I saw your comment. I will check out CC Zero and may take you up on your offer to discuss.

by Joe Chapline on Aug 6, 2009 2:42 pm  

The only advantage BSD would have over CC0 would be an explicit disclaimer of any liability.

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 2:43 pm  

Michael, CC0 also has a disclaimer of warranty. See section 4(b) -- "Affirmer offers the Work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the Work ...".

by Gavin Baker on Aug 6, 2009 2:47 pm  

Rock on. Thanks, Gavin. I withdraw my endorsement of BSD. If Arlington wants to apply CC0 to the data that would be great.

by Michael Perkins on Aug 6, 2009 2:55 pm  

I think these blog comments qualifies as 1 hour of Copyright Law course credit.

by Reid on Aug 6, 2009 4:29 pm  

gaaaaaaaaaaa there's no IP in SCHEDULE DATA! 1. It's DATA! 2. It's PUBLIC INFORMATION!

If under the delusion that it's a for-profit corporation, WMATA insists on licensing agreements for its data, at least that's defensible as law if not public policy, but STOP calling schedule data "intellectual property" when IT'S NOT.

by Anderkoo on Aug 6, 2009 5:49 pm  

@Gavin, I wrote a comment about this a number of months ago, but there's a circuit split as to whether WMATA qualifies as an agency of the federal government or not. There's a decent chance their work is not copyrightable under current law.

by Joey on Aug 6, 2009 7:10 pm  

@Gavin, I wrote a comment about this a number of months ago, but there's a circuit split as to whether WMATA qualifies as an agency of the federal government or not. There's a decent chance their work is not copyrightable under current law.

by Joey on Aug 6, 2009 7:10 pm  

IMO, when a transit company has a positive marginal profit per rider, in terms of operating costs, idiotic things like this get quashed at any level as a matter of corporate culture - you don't hurt the bottom line. But when you deal with a bus system that's so heavily subsidized (and subsidized in this manner) and at the same time penny-pinching, the only way to move the board is to stimulate/simulate a significant public outcry. I'm not going to go into the other pros and cons of operating cost subsidy methods, but the GTFS saga is an argument for one that is more closely tied to ridership so that anyone can say "If we release this information that makes it easier to ride Metrobus, WMATA will make more money" and be certain.

by Squalish on Aug 6, 2009 7:34 pm  

Joey: If anyone here wants to be a test case for blatant, vocal copyright infringement of WMATA data, the file-sharing sites are over there. *points in all directions*

by Squalish on Aug 6, 2009 7:38 pm  

Anyone bothered to ask WMATA if their trip planner is Section 508 compliant for the physically/visually impaired? Any how many languages is it offered in? FTA circulars require outreach to Limited English Proficiency communities. Only a matter of time before WMATA is sued by the visually impaired community and/or gets letters from the Equal Opportunity Department at the FTA. They need to get over themselves. Participation in Google Transit is endorsed by the American Public Transportation Association. Transit agencies pay APTA hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to look out for their best interests. Guess the flogging will continue until morale improves.

by Matt on Aug 7, 2009 2:04 am  

Again, WMATA misses the point when they brag about the local/regional connectivity of their trip planner: So, one of the things I love about Google Transit is that I can now figure out a transit-oriented itinerary across multiple jurisdictions - or, in my case, between LA down to San Diego or Orange County. My local agency (bless their hearts) very reasonably does not include San Diego transit agency schedules in their trip planner engine. But Google Transit can and does. And who knows what WMATA's trip planner is like on a smartphone - can someone opine? I wish WMATA were trying to conjur warm and fuzzy feelings in these discussions, but it seems like they are ruling with an iron fist. I would expect just so much better.

by Sirinya on Aug 25, 2009 2:35 pm  

I think the hangup goes deeper than the licensing and revenue issues. I remember reading that the WMATA route & schedule data has serious irregularities that would cause other systems (such as Google Transit) to choke. If so it could cost quite a bit of money to fix the data. It would take a really big push to get a bureaucracy to spend from their own budget on something they're not already inclined to do.

by Barry on Aug 29, 2009 1:33 am