New York City’s subways, buses and commuter rails are once again using Twitter for real-time transit alerts after the platform owned by Elon Musk backed down from its plan to charge government entities for using the service.
(Bloomberg) — New York City’s subways, buses and commuter rails are once again using Twitter for real-time transit alerts after the platform owned by Elon Musk backed down from its plan to charge government entities for using the service.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the nation’s largest mass-transit provider, resumed tweeting on Thursday.
“Twitter got the message and reversed its plan to charge the MTA more than half a million dollars per year for these alerts, so now no transit agency will need to pay,” Shanifah Rieara, the transit agency’s acting chief customer officer, said in an emailed statement. “The MTA also received written assurances from Twitter that reliability on the platform will be guaranteed through technological means.”
The MTA stopped using Twitter last week to send out service updates to its customers. The social-media platform had asked the state-run agency to pay $50,000 a month to access its application programming interface, or API, a tool that enables multiple computer programs to work together, according to the MTA. Twitter didn’t specifically respond to an emailed request for comment.
While the MTA already provides immediate service alerts through its phone apps — MYmta and TrainTime —- its website and WhatsApp, Twitter does help the agency increase its audience for important updates. The agency is focused on improving service and making the system more convenient to help boost ridership, which fell dramatically during the pandemic. Weekday subway ridership is about 70% of 2019 levels.
Twitter was planning on implementing a new paid tier structure to use its API. After criticism from the MTA and others, it reversed that plan on Tuesday, saying that verified government or publicly owned services that tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notification may use its API for free.
MTA’s Twitter accounts that offer real-time updates include @NYCTSubway, @NYCTBus, @LIRR and @MetroNorth. The transit agency continued using its @MTA account.
(Adds MTA tweet to story after last paragraph.)
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