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An ant farm? No, a day in the life of the MBTA

August 31, 2009 12:33 PM

Is this what the MBTA subway map would look like from above? A multi-colored ant farm?

State Transportation spokesman Colin Durrant sent this link from blogger James Kebinger, who used raw data to create an animated representation of moving subway cars on the Red, Orange, Blue, and Green lines in the course of a day.

The state began releasing the raw scheduling data this month, in hopes of inspiring private citizens to mash it up and create applications that could help commuters. This early effort shows the potential, beyond the practical, to produce aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking results as well.

Internally, MBTA staffers refer to the static version of the route map as a "spider map."

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