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Why the OP did not continue with scraping the website then? I think there will be no legal issue if he does that.
So the only way to gather the data would be manually from the station.
I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to t…
MTA's appeared a number of times on this website and by all accounts it's where tech innovation goes to die, most of their service is still based on switch wire systems that were built in the 60's. Whether that's due to bureaucratic inertia, inadequate funding, or unions or whatever I have no idea, but that's the real problem.
Why the OP did not continue with scraping the website then? I think there will be no legal issue if he does that.
> They also stopped publishing the track number on the website — so going back to scraping was not an option either. So the only way to gather the data would be manually from the station.
Scraping the MTA site against the TOS, and intentionally obfuscating requests to limit the chance of the MTA identifying and shutting it down? Yeah, no surprises here. EDIT: Oops, missed that he didn't end up going live with the scraping. It would still be great for the MTA to publish this data intentionally; but I'm sure the potential for trains to switch tracks and the associated backlash when they do is what preve…
Why didn't he switch to a crowd-sourced data model like GasBuddy?
I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to t…
Scraping the MTA site against the TOS, and intentionally obfuscating requests to limit the chance of the MTA identifying and shutting it down? Yeah, no surprises here. EDIT: Oops, missed that he didn't end up going live with the scraping. It would still be great for the MTA to publish this data intentionally; but I'm sure the potential for trains to switch tracks and the associated backlash when they do is what preve…
Whoever decided to close his access to the API should be fired.
Scraping the MTA site against the TOS, and intentionally obfuscating requests to limit the chance of the MTA identifying and shutting it down? Yeah, no surprises here. EDIT: Oops, missed that he didn't end up going live with the scraping. It would still be great for the MTA to publish this data intentionally; but I'm sure the potential for trains to switch tracks and the associated backlash when they do is what preve…
Where does it say it was against the TOS?