ART to release unencumbered schedule data

Arlington Transit will shortly release its schedule data in the open source Google Transit format for anyone, Google or other developers, to use in trip planning software. According to Chris

Joe Chapline of Arlington Commuter Services, they will impose no restrictions on use of the data, unlike Metro’s. That means no indemnification by any party, and no licensing fees. They are hoping to release the data by the end of this week.

Chapline wrote, “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.” As I’ve argued in the past, Google ought to accept data made available without restriction, even without a formal agreement, just as they do when they crawl Web page data. I recommended Metro put its data out under “take it or leave it” terms. If Google does pick up the ART data, we’ll know that’s a viable option for Metro too. And if they don’t, we can push Google.

One remaining question is whether to release the data under an open source license, or with no license at all. Chapline originally wrote that they were planning to put the data online without a license. However, as commenters pointed out, it’s better to make the terms unambiguous with a license like CC0. That assures developers that they’re not breaking any IP laws by using the data. Data isn’t copyrightable anyway, so it may or may not matter, but such a license would make the legal status unambiguous.

Once again, Arlington shows that it is one of the most forward-thinking jurisdictions when it comes to transportation.