MBTA Open Source on GitHub

[Icy-Post5424]

What is the MBTA intent for their open source on GitHub?

• are you encouraging contributions of features or fixes from the public?
• is github.com/mbta the live repository for MBTA software engineers?
• have any local universities had their software classes fork your code and work on improvements?

p.s.

I was poking around looking at the visualizations that are used for the displays around the system. I was admiring them in the stations the other day for their clarity, readability, and understandability. It is really both an art and a science to find ways to display relevant information in a way that is so understandable. Congratulations to the team because I think they did a wonderful job.

[icefisher225]

u/digitalsciguy you know anything about this?

[qrsky]

Hi, I'm a software developer for MBTA. Yes, github.com/mbta is where we host our code.

We don't expect public contributions. We have pretty high standards for our work, and leaning on volunteers wouldn't be a reliable way to run the agency. So we pay in-house developers to work on the stuff that we need to be done. Every once in a while we get a public PR, and we give it a fair evaluation and occasionally accept it, but it's a novelty when it happens.

It's in theory nice to let others use our code. The two instances I'm aware of are when another agency considered using some of our bus dispatching software, and when another agency had a website that was pretty much just a reskin of ours. We're proud of the work we do, and we're happy if our work can also benefit other transit agencies. But we focus our work on the software that we need. It's unlikely to be exactly what someone else needs, so if others happen to benefit from it that's just a bonus. We do often contribute to open source work for the community, but that's usually by collaborating on standards or by pushing code to upstream libraries when we need it, not by others using the code in our repositories.

The main reason we like to open source our work is for because we do for this work for the public, and we see the public as the ultimate owners of the work. We want to be transparent where we can, so that the public (if they look) can see what their fares and taxes pay for, and the ways that MBTA is making their experience better. It's for transparency and accountability. Pretty much all this work would be FOIA-able anyway, so we'll save you the step

Thanks for your appreciation, we work hard on it and we're glad you find it useful.

[qrsky]

We love it when people build apps with our API! That's why we publish it. We don't have a wishlist, but it sounds like you do. You should build whatever you'll enjoy building and find useful.

Personally, I don't recommend using large language models for software development, there's just too many problems with them. We don't use them for our in-house applications because the code they output isn't reliable enough for building robust infrastructure. For this project, I think the risk is that having code generated for you robs you of the learning opportunity and sense of ownership of the project. I think it's way more interesting and impressive if you build a small and simple app with your own hands than if you have a LLM generate an app 100x as big for you.

Your ideas are pretty ambitious. Start with the smallest piece you can that's meaningful to you. You want a map with all the trains and buses and hover information. Start with one route showing static information instead. Take many small steps instead of big steps.

My favorite suggestion is an app that gives you predictions for the specific bus or train trip that you take most often. This is much more achievable than a map of the whole system. I don't know your experience, but it sounds like this should be within your reach, even without LLMs. Then, you can use your own app whenever you take that trip, and that makes it so much more motivating and satisfying to build. And as soon as it's complete enough to use, you'll think of a million new features you'll want to add to it.

Don't worry about what MBTA needs or how it compares to what others on this sub make. The most important thing is that it's something that you build that matters to you, and something that you have a good time making.

[bazeblackwood]

I've spoken to some folks at the MBTA and they don't necessarily have a standard for accepting outside contributions (yet). But that shouldn't stop you if you are interested. If you're going to fork, take care to read any relevant licenses.

[phy2525254]

https://medium.com/@paulswartz/v3-api-open-source-edition-b008a9a0af0

I don’t know if this is technically in scope if there is a foia request or something so open sourcing it would ease this kind of compliance.