API key request — MassDOT-sponsored MA RTA feeds (nonprofit app)

[Keith Anderson]

Hi all,

I run Shift, a free nonprofit app from the Green Streets Initiative (https://www.gogreenstreets.org/shift) that encourages walking, biking, and transit across Massachusetts.

We're adding a statewide "what's near me" screen with live bus arrivals, and we're trying to reach the RTA GTFS-Realtime feeds hosted under the MassDOT-sponsored Swiftly program. We've seen the massdot-mvrta feed referenced publicly — could someone point us to how to get access (an API key or endpoint), and which other Massachusetts RTAs are covered under that program?

Usage is modest: one poll per agency roughly every 30 seconds from a single server, serving a few hundred riders. Happy to provide anything else you need.

Swiftly's site doesn't have any contact info, and their contact form doesn't have a field for a message (just requesting a product demo). 

Thanks!
Keith Anderson — Executive Director, Green Streets Initiative

[Developer at MBTA]

Hi Keith—thanks for reaching out. Within Massachusetts, we're aware of Massport and PVTA as other users of Swiftly, though there might be a few others.

A form to Swiftly's API can be requested via a link found within goswift.ly/api-license, however the access is entirely up to the each agency's discretion; for example, here at the MBTA we ask that developers instead use our own API for schedule and arrival information (or otherwise use our GTFS-static/realtime feeds directly).

Hope this helps,

Developer@MBTA