Hackers get crack at DOT traffic data

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 08 Desember 2013 | 18.39

Members of the tech community will come together next weekend to sift through a trove of data from the state Department of Transportation, and brainstorm ideas focusing on how people get to their destinations.

"We recognize the immense potential the tech community in the commonwealth could bring to us," said Rachel Bain, project manager for big data in transportation for MassDOT.

The two-day hackathon, starting Friday and hosted by MassDOT at Cambridge tech event space Hack/Reduce, will give the 100-plus coders and developers expected to sign up a chance to turn raw transportation data into a usable visualization — an image, or interactive application, for example. The focus is on travel behavior, road and rail comparisons, and the energy, environmental, and social impacts of the method of transportation people choose, according to organizers who include Massachusetts Big Data and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Participants will have access to some of the data DOT has collected, including real-time traffic information, fare and ridership information for the commuter rail and accident data.

"We hope the visualizations that people are able to produce will help inform us better about what is going on in our transportation system, about traffic in general and the way people move around the state," Bain said.

Marcela Rodriguez, an independent web developer, says she plans to participate in the hackathon because of the possibility of producing something that could have an impact on how people live their lives.

"There's a lot of opportunities to contribute and make a difference," she said. "Transportation and travel are just very interesting fields."

Rodriguez said she has a couple ideas for what she will produce, likely related to train routes.

Three prizes of $2,000 — provided by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative — will be awarded, one each to the project that best uses the DOT data, the project that is the most visually compelling and the crowd favorite.

Adriane Cochrane, executive director of Hack/Reduce, said hackathons that have a beneficial theme are more popular.

"Anything that is civic in nature definitely excites people," she said.

More than a week before the hackathon, spots were more than half full, she said.

"People aren't coming out for the prizes, it's about learning and collaborating and finding peers with the same interests," Cochrane said.

The state hopes to come away from the hackathon with new information about transportation trends, Bain said. "The hacker community could have a really positive impact in transportation planning," she said.


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