Nextbus drops MBTA?

[siderea]

(x-posted to boston and my journal)

Or vice versa?

Nextbus.com prediction pages for MBTA buses now say:

"NextBus is no longer supplying predictions for MBTA. Please go to https://www.mbta.com/mbta-endorsed-apps or https://www.mbta.com/customer-support for more information."

Does anybody know more about this? Like why it's happening? And does anybody know a non-app, desktop-accessible alternative?

Comments

[squirrelitude]

Should I take from this that the MBTA does not provide a public API that people can build on top of? :-/

[siderea]

They certainly used to, q.v. HowFuckedIsTheT.com.

[dmaze]

https://www.mbta.com/developers is reasonably accessible, if you're into that sort of thing and don't mind registering for an API key. The GTFS-Realtime feed is very standard, and says where the busses _are_, but doesn't include predictions (you could make your own). The T also has what you might call a "proprietary" API (that is, it's T-specific and not like GTFS where lots of agencies provide data in the same format) that includes a specific call to retrieve predictions.

[squirrelitude]

Ah, that's good to hear! I had misunderstood the relationship between NextBus and the MBTA, as I think some other folks had.

[siderea]

Cool! (It says GTFS-Realtime includes prediction data!)

[mindstalk]

I note that the T signs at Davis seem to rely on "there is a train at Alewife, surely it is 2 minutes away" rather than any actual schedule; you can stand there looking at "Braintree 2 minutes" for 10 minutes.

[jducoeur]

Yes, although Davis seems to be an outlier there. Far as I can tell, they're reasonably good at predicting trains *except* at turnaround points -- I assume that the "when to send out the next train from Alewife" algorithm has a manual component to it. (And it's notable that they've recently switched over to "Braintree stopped 1 stop away", which is more honest, if not any more useful.)

[josephineave]

I used to take buses from Lechmere and there was a real randomness to departures matching with the predictions. They couldn't really handle buses that would get taken out of service or ones that would be changed to a different route. And a lot of buses don't keep to the departure schedule -- instead just doing a turnaround as soon as they get into the station and get loaded.