New York MTA launches new Website

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Jay H. Walder unveiled a new and dramatically simplified Website that offers the MTA's 8.5 million daily customers access to better organized and far more detailed information about their daily commute.

"One of my first
priorities when I came back to the MTA was to improve the way we communicate
with our customers," said Walder, who began his tenure on October 5.
"We have completely overhauled the MTA’s outdated website format by
putting the customer first with clear, easy-to-find information to help
navigate our transit system."

The Web improvements include:

• A new
"Plan&Ride" corner of the website for the first time puts a trip
planner search feature directly on the mta.info homepage. Plan&Ride
provides MTA customers with regional transit travel planning for not only the
MTA’s 12 NYS counties, but well beyond those borders, into New Jersey and Connecticut.
Plan&Ride offers MTA customers their choice of three trip planning systems,
with Google’s transit trip planner as the default.

• A real-time
service status information box is front and center on the homepage and on each
MTA agency homepage. The information box also provides the status of traffic on
the MTA’s seven bridges and two tunnels. Customers will now be able to check
and see at a glance if their own subway line, bus route or railroad branch is
operating with "Good Service" or if there are unexpected
"Delays," "Planned Work," or "Service Changes".

• A Developer
Resource Center where the MTA will make data available to software developers
who are interested in creating smartphone or Web applications — or
"apps" — that help MYA customers. While the new Resource Center will
launch with existing service and schedule data, the intent over the longer term
is to identify and make available other data about the MTA system and its
operation. That should lead to new and exciting apps that will provide improved
information for customers.

The
MTA today also jointly announced with Google that the leading format for
sharing data, known as the "Google" Transit Feed Specification would
now be known as the "General" Transit Feed Specification, or GTFS.

"Google
applauds the MTA’s efforts to open up their route and schedule data to all app
developers," said Joe Hughes, Lead Developer of GTFS at Google.
"Transit agencies around the world are finding that open GTFS data means
more and better apps for transit riders, at no additional cost to the
agency."

• More and better
information for mobile users: The MTA mobile site, which customizes the view of
schedules, maps, and service alerts for mobile devices, will reflect the new
web redesign on its opening page. It will offer a detailed real-time service
alert feature similar to the new system on the MTA webpage. A newly designed
smartphone-compatible link will also be available as well.

A
new Web-based feature available through Metro-North Railroad’s home page, Metro-North
Train Time^TM provides convenient real-time train status and schedule information
on your smart phone or computer for 67 stations, including Grand Central and
Harlem-125th Street. The feature will give up-to-the minute train
arrival/departure information, train stops, track assignment, train status and
final destination information for the next 12 trains at those stations, and
more will be added this spring. This is the first step in providing such
improved information across the MTA family.

An entirely new
section on the website entitled "Accountability and Transparency"
heralds a new era of openness at the MTA by grouping all types of budgetary and
financial information in one place and by providing quick access to Board
Agendas, MTA policies, reports and more. The new site also includes a
Performance Indicator Dashboard — "MTA Stat" — that rates the MTA’s
operating performance.

An MTA Newsroom
provides current information about MTA initiatives, including the introduction
of a new video section.

Direct links to
newly launched MTA Facebook and Twitter pages will allow our customers to
follow us in the world of social media.

"Moving forward, we
will be updating and improving the web site on a continual basis, but it should
be clear today that the MTA is committed to doing a better job communicating
with our customers and using technology to operate more efficiently," said
Walder.