Re: MTA Bridge Tolls - commercial versus passenger cars

[Aaron Donovan]

Hi Chris,

It isn't digitized, but our monthly committee books there are graphs and charts that say Average Daily Vehicle by Type. It then says total, passenger and other. Other is commercial traffic. 

It is in the Bridges and Tunnels committee books in PDF format, which you can find under MTA.info --> Transparency --> Board Materials --> Board & Committee Materials, which leads you here:

http://mta.info/mta/news/books/ 

I'll make a note that you're interested in seeing this as a digital feed.

-Aaron

On Friday, October 26, 2012 12:26:38 PM UTC-4, Chris Smith wrote:

Hi,

I'm looking for a way to find the amount of commercial traffic over the MTA bridges (versus passenger cars).  The plaza counts on the site only show cash vs. ez pass.

Is there any way to get this data?

Thanks so much,

Chris

[Chris Smith]

Thanks for the pointer to the PDFs.  Appreciate keeping this in mind for a digital feed.

Best,

Chris

[Ethan Arutunian]

Help!

We have been relying on the following URL to pull the MTA Service Status:
http://mta.info/status/serviceStatus.txt

The MTA's site and this URL seem to have changed significantly in the
past 24 hours. This URL is no longer working.

Can someone point me to a different location to pull the file?

Thanks!

-ethan

[Yuriy Yakimenko]

Yes, it says 301 redirect but file at new location is not the same format (and does not have the same info). I understand MTA is busy with more important things right now, but please take a moment and look at this issue. 

[Ethan Arutunian]

I'm getting a 404 on that URL: The requested URL "/status/servicestatus.txt" was not found on this server.

We have thousands of users relying on this info. Any update would be extremely helpful!

Thanks,
-ethan

[Will]

I posted about this issue earlier but it hasn't appeared in the group as of yet. My users also rely on this feed, and due to the redirect stuff going on right now on the main mta.info site, this service status feed no longer works. This is an important feed at a time like this, because users are trying to discover how they can travel from A to B and need the latest status on the network.

Please can you try to get this resolved as soon as possible. Communicating with the travelling public is surely important at a time like this, and this feed shouldn't really be going down when events like this happen.

Best wishes,

Will
Developer of Bus New York City

[Nabil Mouzannar]

Hi Did you guys hear anything about the feed ? 

thanks

Nabil

[Will]

No, its still down :((

[Ethan Arutunian]

An ETA for when the system will come back online would allow us to figure out what to do in the short term.

-ethan

[John Paul N.]

I agree that an ETA would be appreciated. The MTA staff usually
replies quickly, so maybe there is a communications issue on their
end? In any case, it is worth considering to have the system service
feed hosted from a server redundant to or separate from the website
server.

From my observations, I used my app through the point that subway
service was suspended (~22:00 on Monday), but I can't remember using
it properly after that. That was also around the time the power in
lower Manhattan was shut down.

I'd also note the escalator/elevator feed is not working, but that is
certainly not a high priority at this time. Bus Time service (for
developers) is the only working service I have encountered.

--JP

On Nov 1, 12:37 pm, Ethan Arutunian <et...@roadify.com> wrote:
> An ETA for when the system will come back online would allow us to
> figure out what to do in the short term.
>
> -ethan
>
> On 10/31/12 5:42 PM, Will wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > No, its still down :((
>
> > On Wednesday, October 31, 2012 7:48:54 PM UTC, Nabil wrote:
>
> >     Hi Did you guys hear anything about the feed ?
>
> >     thanks
> >     Nabil
>
> >     On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 1:06 PM, Will <wi...@electriclabs.com

> >     <javascript:>> wrote:
>
> >         I posted about this issue earlier but it hasn't appeared in
> >         the group as of yet. My users also rely on this feed, and due
> >         to the redirect stuff going on right now on the main mta.info

> >         <http://mta.info> site, this service status feed no longer

[Robby O'Connor]

Maybe they're busy dealing with the disaster that is Hurricane
Sandy...I'm sure they're overextended in more than a few ways!

Be forgiving in times like this...

Just speculating here...but I'm ~80% certain that this is the case. Keep
in mind they're trying REALLY hard to get things back up and running!

--rob

[Will]

Robert- we're all aware that there has been a hurricane and that it's a difficult time for the MTA.

At times like these, the status feed is vitally important as it helps communicate to the public how the network is recovering and helps people make transport decisions. John Paul is right- the status feed should not be coupled to the web servers as it currently is, and any redirects they put in place should not bring down important external data feeds. I wonder if there is anything we can do to mitigate against this in the future?

W

[Nabil Mouzannar]

That's true W, it is in these difficult times when people use their apps the most! 

I have been getting so many emails from my users complaining about my app not working. I should have put a better message when the feed is not available

Nabil

[Sheldon A. Brown]

I have heard unconfirmed reports that the current mta.info is a
Disaster Recovery version hosted by AWS while the MTA works to get
their internal servers back on line. I suspect that everything that
can be done is being done right now.

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Ethan Arutunian <et...@roadify.com> wrote:

[Ethan Arutunian]

We did hear back from the MTA and their servers were down (including email) with no ETA for the service status feed.

As a temporary back-up plan - to keep our users informed - we are polling the current MTA site and mining the service status data directly from the HTML.

We have also decided to convert that data back into an identical "serviceStatus.txt" file and make it available to the developer community from our server until the MTA's feed is back online.

If you are interested in pulling the feed file from our server *temporarily*, please contact me directly. I realize this won't work for those of you with a URL hard-coded in your App.

I'm hopeful things will return to normal soon.

-ethan

[Jeremy Baron]

On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 1:27 AM, Ethan Arutunian <et...@roadify.com> wrote:
> As a temporary back-up plan - to keep our users informed - we are polling
> the current MTA site and mining the service status data directly from the
> HTML.
>
> We have also decided to convert that data back into an identical
> "serviceStatus.txt" file and make it available to the developer community
> from our server until the MTA's feed is back online.

could you also publish a repo (git?) with your code to scrape and
serialize back to the original serviceStatus.txt format?

Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jym Dyer]

The BusTime feeds work, and have a SituationExchangeDelivery element,
providing service status for buses, at least. Here's the gist:

<Description xml:lang="EN">All Manhattan local buses have resumed with limited service. Details at mta.info.</Description>

<Description xml:lang="EN">All Bronx local and express buses have resumed with limited service and detours. Details at mta.info.</Description>

<Description xml:lang="EN">Various Staten Island buses have resumed with limited service.</Description>

<Description xml:lang="EN">All Brooklyn local buses have resumed with limited service except for the Q100 bus. Details at mta.info</Description>

<_Jym_>

[Nabil Mouzannar]

Can they keep the same URL ? And same format?
We have to change the app and resubmit it to the store

Sent from my IPhone

[Samuel Wong]

It looks like the MTA page is back to normal, so I presume the status feeds should be returning to normal levels.  On SchedNYC, the Service Feeds call was successful, and I was able to see the same updates as the mta.info site.  I have to say while it took a while for the feed to come back, the MTA's main goal Post-Sandy should be train restoration AND only that.  While only two additional clicks, folks can visit mta.info for service changes on their devices anyways.  John Paul did a nice job in telling the user that the service info will not available until further notice, which is a good alternative when MTA switches to "emergency" mode.  Nonetheless, I agree that there needs to be secondary solution in the future.

--
Samuel Wong
samwo...@gmail.com

Google Voice (recommended): (646) 484-9142

(646) 648-2179

https://www.facebook.com/samueljwong | @samjwong

Please consider the environment before printing this message.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. -Henry Clay

[Brian Ferris]

Speaking of status, I'm seeing on the MTA status page that the 1 train is only running to 14 St.  I could have sworn it had been running down to Chambers St.  Can anyone confirm or deny?

[Samuel Wong]

Chambers during the day and 14th St at night.

[Samuel Wong]

oops. I switched the terminals. 14th during evenings and the Chambers during day as extra service along 7th Avenue.

[John Paul N.]

Thanks so much, Sam, as always. I have to admit I was still polling the original Service Status URL. In my latest update post-Sandy, if the format of servicestatus.txt was not the normal or expected format, I told users to find service information on the MTA website (previously it reported "Good Service," obviously incorrect). So when the MTA's normal servers were finally up and running, the service status appeared in my app as expected.

While Ethan's contribution to scrape the temporary service feed was considerate, I decided not to use it not only because I thought I had to change my code significantly (as he had warned), but because I had a feeling the servers would be running soon and the MTA's temporary website was clearer in visualizing and updating the complicated service changes than my app would have. Had the outage been longer, I might have reconsidered.

I will say this on the other thread as well, but I want to say my thanks to the MTA for all the work they have done for the past two weeks, culminating in the restoration of the Web servers.

Nabil, out of curiosity, how long does it take Apple to approve app updates and post them in their app store? In my experience with Android, when I post updates, they usually appear in the Google Play ranging from a few minutes to a few hours.