After Twitter Backtracks, NYC MTA Resumes Real-Time Transportation Alerts

UPDATE 5/5: Twitter this week reversed its decision to shut down free access to its API for verified government and publicly owned services, meaning the MTA has resumed posting service alerts on @NYCTSubway, @NYCTBus, @LIRR, and @MetroNorth.

“We’re glad that Twitter has committed to offering free API access for public service providers. We’ve made critical investments in digital products, such as our apps and station screens, to communicate with customers. But Twitter is a part of that toolkit,” the organization tweeted(Opens in a new window).

Original Story:
New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is ditching real-time subway, train, and bus service alerts on Twitter after the social network reportedly asked the MTA to pay $50,000 a month for continued access to its API.

Since access to that API was “involuntarily interrupted” twice in the last two weeks, “I don’t think it would be the best use of resources, especially when we have these other features and functions that are internal and homegrown and that are reliable that we want our customers to use,” Shanifah Rieara, MTA’s acting chief customer officer, tells Bloomberg(Opens in a new window). “We want to communicate with our customers through all platforms, but we need a platform that is reliant and consistent and up to date.”

MTA provides real-time service information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through its website, apps, email and text alerts. Until recently, it posted that data to Twitter accounts like @NYCTSubway, @NYCTBus, @LIRR, and @MetroNorth.

“We’ve loved getting to know you on here, but we don’t love not knowing if we can [continue] to communicate with you each day,” the MTA tweeted(Opens in a new window). “For the MTA, Twitter is no longer reliable for providing the consistent updates riders expect.”

There is no planned change to @MTA; customers may continue tweeting at all MTA accounts with questions and requests for help.

In early February, Twitter announced plans to shut down free access to its API—which allows third-party developers to build tools that connect with the service—and replace it with a “paid basic tier.” Plans, as reported by Wired(Opens in a new window), start at $42,000 per month ($504K annually) for access to 50 million tweets and reach a whopping $210,000 per month for 200 million tweets.

The company, led by Elon Musk, justified the shift by claiming it’s high time people pay for the valuable data and insights circulating on the platform.

“The MTA does not pay tech platforms to publish service information and has built redundant tools that provide service alerts in real time,” Rieara said in a Thursday statement(Opens in a new window), adding that Twitter’s “reliability … can no longer be guaranteed.”

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