Talk open data with WMATA officials July 19

Officials formally presented their Transparent Metro Data Sets initiative to the WMATA Board yesterday, and will be presenting at a public meeting organized by the RAC on July 19.

We’d reported on this effort a month ago, when it appeared on the Board agenda but was then deferred.

On August 11, WMATA will release rail data including the paths of lines, real-time predictions for train arrivals, service disruptions, and escalator and elevator outages. Bus data will follow by the end of 2010.

Bus data will take longer because, according to IT head Suzanne Peck, all bus stop inventory has heretofore been spread among four different, incompatible systems. WMATA is integrating that into a single system, which will improve the usability of this data for external developers and internally as well.

Chris Zimmerman also asked about the Google agreement. Peck said that WMATA has completed their end of some steps before signing the agreement, but she and General Manager Sarles couldn’t give specifics on when anything would happen. Zimmerman noted that WMATA seems to be “asymptotically approaching” completion on this issue.

Peck said that WMATA is contracting with Mashery to actually serve the open data to third party developers. Mashery will host the data itself on their servers, and can manage load so that one application doesn’t overwhelm systems and shut it down for everyone else.

Users and developers will be able to accept the terms and conditions with a single click, but Peck did not specify what the terms and conditions will be. If they’re still too restrictive, many open source developers won’t be able to use the data. I’ve asked for more clarification.

If you want to talk about this further with WMATA officials, the RAC is holding a public meeting to get a briefing on this initiative on Monday, July 19th at 6:30 pm. It’ll be at the lobby level committee room at WMATA HQ, 600 5th Street, NW.

At the recent meeting on the 7000 series railcars, the security personnel changed midway through the meeting and the new officer wasn’t aware of the meeting and turned some pople away. We’ll ensure they have written information at the desk about the meeting. In case this happens again and the officers don’t know, ask them to look for the paper notice.

That’s not the only exciting event in the next few weeks. Tuesday and Wednesday, the Sierra Club is holding discussions on how to take the valuable sustainability objectives from the Greater Washington 2050 “Region Forward” report and actually move the region forward. Tuesday’s is in DC with Harriet Tregoning and COG Executive Director Dave Robertson, followed by one Wednesday in Arlington with Chris Zimmerman and Robertson.

Also on Wednesday is our next happy hour, at Biergarten Haus, 1355 H Street, NE starting at 6:30.

Finally, the following Tuesday, July 20 is the next public meeting on the Medical Center “crossing” fiasco, MCDOT’s earnest attempt to shoehorn earmarks for improving access to the Metro station and pedestrian and bicycle conditions into something that speeds motor vehicles.