MTA assessing options for service alerts after Twitter retracts API stance
Transit agencies that utilized Twitter’s API to post automated service updates and found themselves without access late last week should again be able to use the API to keep riders informed of service changes.
Twitter announced in February that its API would be reorganized into tiered access with increasing pay rates. Those tiers range from free, which caps tweets to 1,500 per month; basic, which costs $100 per month and caps tweets to 3,000 and significantly more expensive enterprise, which reportedly is priced at between $42,000 per month and up to $210,000 per month.
North America’s largest transit system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), issued a statement last week saying it would stop posting service information to Twitter “as the reliability of the platform can no longer be guaranteed.”
According to Bloomberg, MTA was asked to pay Twitter in the ballpark of $50,000 per month to access the API. While a new state budget deal for Fiscal Year 2024 will ease some of the authority’s financial stress, the Twitter change would have added an estimated $600,000 expense annually.
"The MTA does not pay tech platforms to publish service information and has built redundant tools that provide service alerts in real time. Those include the MYmta and TrainTime apps, the MTA’s homepage at MTA.info, email alerts and text messages. Service alerts are also available on thousands of screens in stations, on trains and in buses,” MTA Acting Chief Customer Shanifah Rieara said.
The authority reported its access to Twitter through its API was involuntarily interrupted twice in April. MTA said it would keep its @MTA Twitter account active for branding and other messaging and customers would still be able to send messages to the authority’s other Twitter accounts to receive responses.
Automatic traffic alerts from Connecticut Department of Transportation and weather updates from the National Weather Service were also impacted by Twitter’s change in API policy.
On May 2, Twitter’s developer account posted a tweet that walked back its pay model for verified government or publicly owned services:
“One of the most important use cases for the Twitter API has always been public utility. Verified gov or publicly owned services who tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notifications may use the API, for these critical purposes, for free.”
In response, MTA posted it was “glad that Twitter got the message," and it is assessing its options for service alerts.
Mischa Wanek-Libman | Group Editorial Director
Mischa Wanek-Libman is director of communications with Transdev North America. She has more than 20 years of experience working in the transportation industry covering construction projects, engineering challenges, transit and rail operations and best practices.
Wanek-Libman has held top editorial positions at freight rail and public transportation business-to-business publications including as editor-in-chief and editorial director of Mass Transit from 2018-2024. She has been recognized for editorial excellence through her individual work, as well as for collaborative content.
She is an active member of the American Public Transportation Association's Marketing and Communications Committee and served 14 years as a Board Observer on the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association (NRC) Board of Directors.
She is a graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communication.
