MTA Developer API

Name: MTA Developer API
Brand: MTA Developer API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecMaps GeolocationRouting Directionsnone10 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Download the MTA's published GTFS schedule archives for NYC subway, LIRR, Metro-North, and per-borough bus services to power transit routing and schedule apps.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the MTA Developer API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the MTA Developer API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with MTA Developer API.

Download the latest NYC subway GTFS schedule via GET /gtfs_subway.zip

Pull the supplemented subway feed reflecting near-term service changes via GET /gtfs_supplemented.zip

Retrieve the Long Island Rail Road schedule via GET /gtfslirr.zip

GET STARTED

Start building with MTA Developer API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use Cases

Patterns agents use MTA Developer API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Power a NYC Transit Routing App

Trip planning apps consume the MTA's GTFS archives to compute station-to-station itineraries with realistic transfer times and operating hours. Pulling /gtfs_subway.zip and the borough bus zips builds a multi-modal graph that covers subway plus the surface bus network. Apps refresh nightly so service changes propagate without manual data entry.

Download GET /gtfs_subway.zip and the five borough bus zips, unzip each into a working directory, and load the stops.txt and stop_times.txt into the routing graph.

Schedule Lookup for an Internal Tool

Operations teams in NYC need to surface the next train at a specific station for staff or visitor wayfinding. Loading /gtfs_subway.zip produces a stop-times dataset that answers 'next 6 train at Bleecker Street' lookups locally without per-query API calls. The supplemented feed adds short-term service changes from /gtfs_supplemented.zip.

Pull GET /gtfs_subway.zip and GET /gtfs_supplemented.zip, merge the stop_times tables, and answer 'next train at stop X' from the merged dataset.

LIRR and Metro-North Commuter Tools

Commuter tools serving the Long Island and Hudson Valley markets ingest /gtfslirr.zip and /gtfsmnr.zip to surface train times, track assignments where exposed, and service patterns. The static feeds supply the schedule baseline while real-time GTFS-RT alert feeds - published separately by the MTA - overlay disruptions on top.

Download GET /gtfslirr.zip and GET /gtfsmnr.zip, unzip both, and surface the next northbound departure from Stamford or the next eastbound from Penn Station.

Agent-Driven Daily GTFS Refresh

An AI agent maintains a transit dataset by refreshing every MTA archive nightly. Through Jentic the agent searches for 'download nyc subway gtfs', loads the schema, and iterates through each GTFS zip URL the API exposes. The unauthenticated surface means no credential handling - only download orchestration and validation that the archives parse cleanly.

Search Jentic for 'download nyc subway gtfs', execute each MTA archive endpoint, and validate that stops.txt and trips.txt parse with no errors before swapping the new dataset into production.

Key Endpoints

10 endpoints — the metropolitan transportation authority developer api provides static gtfs schedule data for new york city's subway, long island rail road, metro-north, and bus services.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/gtfs_subway.zip

Download static NYC subway GTFS

GET

/gtfs_supplemented.zip

Download subway GTFS with near-term service changes

GET

/gtfslirr.zip

Download Long Island Rail Road GTFS

GET

/gtfsmnr.zip

Download Metro-North Railroad GTFS

GET

/gtfs_bx.zip

Download Bronx bus GTFS

GET

/gtfs_busco.zip

Download MTA Bus Company GTFS

GET

/gtfs_subway.zip

Download static NYC subway GTFS

GET

/gtfs_supplemented.zip

Download subway GTFS with near-term service changes

GET

/gtfslirr.zip

Download Long Island Rail Road GTFS

GET

/gtfsmnr.zip

Download Metro-North Railroad GTFS

GET

/gtfs_bx.zip

Download Bronx bus GTFS

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

The MTA static GTFS feeds need no credential, so there is nothing to store, and your agent reaches only the download operations you allow. No secret ever enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'download nyc subway gtfs' or 'get metro-north schedule feed', and Jentic returns the matching MTA archive operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

Time to first call

FAQs

Specific to using MTA Developer API through Jentic.

What authentication does the MTA Developer API use?

The static GTFS download endpoints exposed in this spec are unauthenticated - they serve public schedule archives. Through Jentic the agent calls them with no credential setup at all, which makes orchestrating a multi-archive refresh trivial.

Can I get realtime arrival data through these endpoints?

No. The endpoints in this spec return static GTFS archive zips for schedule planning. The MTA publishes separate GTFS-Realtime feeds for live arrivals and alerts, which are not exposed here - combine those feeds with these schedules for full real-time routing.

What are the rate limits for the MTA Developer API?

The MTA hosts the GTFS archives on a CDN-fronted bucket and does not publish a strict per-IP rate limit, but courtesy use means a daily refresh rather than per-request polling. Each archive is large - pull each zip once per day and reuse the local copy.

How do I refresh all GTFS data through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'download nyc subway gtfs', execute each archive endpoint listed in the spec, and persist the zips to local storage. The agent runs the calls without credentials and validates the archives parse before swapping them into production.

Is the MTA Developer API free?

Yes. The MTA publishes the schedule archives as public open data and there is no per-call charge or quota for downloading the GTFS zips.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the MTA Developer API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which of the MTA GTFS download operations your agent may call, so you can scope it to just the subway feed (GET /gtfs_subway.zip) or the Long Island Rail Road feed (GET /gtfslirr.zip) and leave every other archive out of reach. These endpoints only download static, read-only GTFS zip archives, so an agent limited to the feeds you allow cannot touch anything beyond those downloads. The feeds are unauthenticated, so there is no credential to store and nothing for the agent to misuse.