MBTA API
Basics
URL
https://api-v3.mbta.com/
Vehicles
Vehicles describes any mass transit vehicles with a GPS location.
You access those by using this URL, where base_url is the URL above.
base_url/vehicles/?filter[route]=1&include=trip
The request has a few attributes to note.
First, the vehicles sub-route accesses data about vehicles.
Then the query parameter indicated first by a ? and
then the filter directive is used to filter the data,
in this case by the route attribute.
Then the & separates query parameters, in this case include.
The include parameter states that the trip attribute should be included in the response.
Example Response
Using the vehicles sub-route and the filter and include parameters,
we get the below response:
{
"data": [
{
"attributes": {
"bearing": 329,
"current_status": "IN_TRANSIT_TO",
"current_stop_sequence": 13,
"direction_id": 0,
"label": "1881",
"latitude": 42.346310529,
"longitude": -71.087339869,
"occupancy_status": "MANY_SEATS_AVAILABLE",
"speed": null,
"updated_at": "2023-04-21T08:51:11-04:00"
},
"id": "y1881",
"links": {
"self": "/vehicles/y1881"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"stop": {
"data": {
"id": "93",
"type": "stop"
}
},
"trip": {
"data": {
"id": "55867330",
"type": "trip"
}
}
},
"type": "vehicle"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bearing": 350,
"current_status": "IN_TRANSIT_TO",
"current_stop_sequence": 14,
"direction_id": 0,
"label": "1857",
"latitude": 42.34987075,
"longitude": -71.088932139,
"occupancy_status": "FEW_SEATS_AVAILABLE",
"speed": null,
"updated_at": "2023-04-21T08:51:11-04:00"
},
"id": "y1857",
"links": {
"self": "/vehicles/y1857"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"stop": {
"data": {
"id": "95",
"type": "stop"
}
},
"trip": {
"data": {
"id": "55867332",
"type": "trip"
}
}
},
"type": "vehicle"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bearing": 38,
"current_status": "IN_TRANSIT_TO",
"current_stop_sequence": 3,
"direction_id": 0,
"label": "1776",
"latitude": 42.33239015,
"longitude": -71.08135421,
"occupancy_status": "FEW_SEATS_AVAILABLE",
"speed": null,
"updated_at": "2023-04-21T08:51:13-04:00"
},
"id": "y1776",
"links": {
"self": "/vehicles/y1776"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"stop": {
"data": {
"id": "2",
"type": "stop"
}
},
"trip": {
"data": {
"id": "55867336",
"type": "trip"
}
}
},
"type": "vehicle"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bearing": 0,
"current_status": "IN_TRANSIT_TO",
"current_stop_sequence": 18,
"direction_id": 1,
"label": "1772",
"latitude": 42.33501974,
"longitude": -71.0752513,
"occupancy_status": "MANY_SEATS_AVAILABLE",
"speed": null,
"updated_at": "2023-04-21T08:51:12-04:00"
},
"id": "y1772",
"links": {
"self": "/vehicles/y1772"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"stop": {
"data": {
"id": "854",
"type": "stop"
}
},
"trip": {
"data": {
"id": "55867908",
"type": "trip"
}
}
},
"type": "vehicle"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bearing": 0,
"current_status": "IN_TRANSIT_TO",
"current_stop_sequence": 1,
"direction_id": 1,
"label": "1736",
"latitude": 42.329845579,
"longitude": -71.08411292,
"occupancy_status": "MANY_SEATS_AVAILABLE",
"speed": null,
"updated_at": "2023-04-21T08:51:04-04:00"
},
"id": "y1736",
"links": {
"self": "/vehicles/y1736"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"stop": {
"data": {
"id": "64",
"type": "stop"
}
},
"trip": {
"data": {
"id": "55867907",
"type": "trip"
}
}
},
"type": "vehicle"
}
],
"included": [
{
"attributes": {
"bikes_allowed": 1,
"block_id": "C01-6",
"direction_id": 0,
"headsign": "Harvard",
"name": "",
"wheelchair_accessible": 1
},
"id": "55867330",
"links": {
"self": "/trips/55867330"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"route_pattern": {
"data": {
"id": "1-_-0",
"type": "route_pattern"
}
},
"service": {
"data": {
"id": "BUS223-4-Wdy-02",
"type": "service"
}
},
"shape": {
"data": {
"id": "010111",
"type": "shape"
}
}
},
"type": "trip"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bikes_allowed": 1,
"block_id": "C01-7",
"direction_id": 0,
"headsign": "Harvard",
"name": "",
"wheelchair_accessible": 1
},
"id": "55867332",
"links": {
"self": "/trips/55867332"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"route_pattern": {
"data": {
"id": "1-_-0",
"type": "route_pattern"
}
},
"service": {
"data": {
"id": "BUS223-4-Wdy-02",
"type": "service"
}
},
"shape": {
"data": {
"id": "010111",
"type": "shape"
}
}
},
"type": "trip"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bikes_allowed": 1,
"block_id": "C01-9",
"direction_id": 0,
"headsign": "Harvard",
"name": "",
"wheelchair_accessible": 1
},
"id": "55867336",
"links": {
"self": "/trips/55867336"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"route_pattern": {
"data": {
"id": "1-_-0",
"type": "route_pattern"
}
},
"service": {
"data": {
"id": "BUS223-4-Wdy-02",
"type": "service"
}
},
"shape": {
"data": {
"id": "010111",
"type": "shape"
}
}
},
"type": "trip"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bikes_allowed": 1,
"block_id": "C01-10",
"direction_id": 1,
"headsign": "Nubian",
"name": "",
"wheelchair_accessible": 1
},
"id": "55867907",
"links": {
"self": "/trips/55867907"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"route_pattern": {
"data": {
"id": "1-_-1",
"type": "route_pattern"
}
},
"service": {
"data": {
"id": "BUS223-4-Wdy-02",
"type": "service"
}
},
"shape": {
"data": {
"id": "010118",
"type": "shape"
}
}
},
"type": "trip"
},
{
"attributes": {
"bikes_allowed": 1,
"block_id": "C01-11",
"direction_id": 1,
"headsign": "Nubian",
"name": "",
"wheelchair_accessible": 1
},
"id": "55867908",
"links": {
"self": "/trips/55867908"
},
"relationships": {
"route": {
"data": {
"id": "1",
"type": "route"
}
},
"route_pattern": {
"data": {
"id": "1-_-1",
"type": "route_pattern"
}
},
"service": {
"data": {
"id": "BUS223-4-Wdy-02",
"type": "service"
}
},
"shape": {
"data": {
"id": "010118",
"type": "shape"
}
}
},
"type": "trip"
}
],
"jsonapi": {
"version": "1.0"
}
}Simple Python Client
To further analyze the results from the MBTA API, it's useful to create clients that can parse the information in more digestible forms.
import urllib.request
import json
# request json file
url = 'https://api-v3.mbta.com/vehicles?filter[route]=1&include=trip'
response = urllib.request.urlopen(url).read()
data = json.loads(response)
# write to console
print(json.dumps(data, indent=2))