Massachusetts is planning to “democratize the data” behind its public transportation network.

It’s providing software developers with all the coding and background goods they will need to develop iPhone applications and other high-tech aids incorporating MBTA subway, bus, train and regional transit knowledge.

A restaurant owner, for example, could easily add official government details about the location and details of transit stops or bus schedules into a Web site about his business.

It builds off an earlier initiative helping Google Maps incorporate the same knowledge into driving and walking directions requested by its users.

“With the help of thoughtful technical developers, making that input public will spawn many possible applications to help transit users use their cell phones or laptops to find and use the right bus or train in the right place at the right instance for them,” Transportation Secretary James Aloisi, who plus heads the T’s board of directors, said Monday in a statement.

The MBTA becomes the third-largest transit agency in the country to manufacture such documents public in a format converted to the industry-standard Google Transit Feed Specification. Similar efforts have been undertaken in Washington, San Francisco, and Portland, Ore.

Spokesman Colin Durrant said the office is “democratizing that goods.”

He said: “Obviously, that is a lot cheaper than us doing it ourselves through a consultant, and probably more effective considering the user is creating the tools using info we supply.”

It’s welcome news to Bryant University student Luke Bornheimer, who earlier that year launched a Facebook page urging the T to assemble the info available to Google.

“A lot of times the info is there; it just needs to be put out in a format for society to use,” the 21-year-old said.

He talked about similar projects allowing developers to overlay crime statistics with a mapping program.

That way, out-of-towners could get walking routes that avoid…

[Source] dhiram