Chicago Transit Authority
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the public transit operator for the City of Chicago and 35 surrounding suburbs, operating the second largest public transit system in the United States with bus and rapid-transit (L) train services. The CTA Developer Center publishes open transit data feeds and APIs for developers building rider-facing applications, including the Train Tracker API for real-time L-train arrivals, the Bus Tracker API for real-time bus arrivals and vehicle locations, the Customer Alerts API for service status and disruptions, and GTFS schedule data feeds for the entire CTA bus and rail network.
Chicago Transit Authority publishes 11 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Arrivals API, Bulletins API, Follow API, and 8 more. Tagged areas include Bus, Bus Tracker, Chicago, CTA, and Customer Alerts.
The Chicago Transit Authority catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.
Chicago Transit Authority’s developer surface includes engineering blog, authentication, developer portal, and 16 more developer resources.
Kin Score
Markets this provider is in provisional
The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.
| Market | Position | Depth | Registered MCP server | Declares compatibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transit and Mobility (public transit, rail, micromobility) | standard | 44.1 | - | 1 |
| Rail Sales and Distribution (OSDM, railway union, EU railway licences) | standard | 44.1 | - | 1 |
| Raycast Store Extensions (first-party publishers + community-wrapped products) | standard | 44.1 | - | 1 |
Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.
Standards implemented 2
Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.
APIs 11
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
CTA Customer Alerts API
The Customer Alerts API delivers real-time service status, planned outages, and disruption information for CTA bus and rail services. It provides both a route-level status feed ...
CTA GTFS Schedule Feed
CTA publishes a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) schedule feed covering the physical layout, stop locations, and static schedules for the entire CTA bus and L train sys...
Chicago Transit Authority Arrivals API
Train arrival prediction operations
Chicago Transit Authority Bulletins API
The Bulletins API from Chicago Transit Authority — 1 operation(s) for bulletins.
Chicago Transit Authority Follow API
Follow an individual train run
Chicago Transit Authority Locations API
Train geolocation operations
Chicago Transit Authority Predictions API
The Predictions API from Chicago Transit Authority — 1 operation(s) for predictions.
Chicago Transit Authority Routes API
The Routes API from Chicago Transit Authority — 3 operation(s) for routes.
Chicago Transit Authority Stops API
The Stops API from Chicago Transit Authority — 1 operation(s) for stops.
Chicago Transit Authority System API
The System API from Chicago Transit Authority — 1 operation(s) for system.
Chicago Transit Authority Vehicles API
The Vehicles API from Chicago Transit Authority — 1 operation(s) for vehicles.
Scroll for all 11
Open Collections 11
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
CTA Bus Tracker Arrivals API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Bulletins API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Follow API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Locations API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Predictions API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Routes API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Stops API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals System API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker Arrivals Vehicles API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Bus Tracker API
OPEN COLLECTIONCTA Train Tracker API
OPEN COLLECTIONScroll for all 11
Chicago Transit Authority API pricing
Not yet checked against Chicago Transit Authority's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Free freemium | Free |
| Professional paid | Free |
| Enterprise enterprise | — |
Plan details, limits and sources →
Rate limits
- Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
- Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
- Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute
Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Chicago Transit Authority's documentation. All 5 limits →
Pricing Plans 1
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Chicago Transit Authority Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSService Levels 1
Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.
FinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Features 10
Notable capabilities this provider offers.
Real-Time Train Arrivals
Real-Time Bus Arrivals
Train Run Locations
Bus Vehicle Locations
Route and Stop Directories
Customer Alerts and Service Status
Planned Outage Notifications
GTFS Static Schedule Feed
API Key Issuance
Open Chicago Transit Data
Scroll for all 10
Semantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Spectral Rules 1
Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.
Chicago Transit Authority API Rules
SPECTRALSecurity Posture 2
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Agentic Access 1
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Use Cases 9
What developers build with this provider.
Rider-Facing Mobile Apps
Trip Planners and Routing
Real-Time Arrival Displays
Service Disruption Notifications
Schedule Visualizations
Accessibility Tooling
Smart City Dashboards
Multimodal Transit Apps
Research and Open Data Analysis
Scroll for all 9
Resources
Get Started 2
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 2
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Access & Security 3
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 2
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 4
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 4
The organization behind the API
Other 2
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
Source (apis.yml)
Chicago Transit Authority API — frequently asked questions
Does Chicago Transit Authority have an API?
Yes. APIs.io lists 11 APIs from Chicago Transit Authority, including CTA Customer Alerts API, CTA GTFS Schedule Feed and Chicago Transit Authority Arrivals API, and 8 more.
Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Chicago Transit Authority API?
Yes. APIs.io indexes 9 OpenAPI specifications for Chicago Transit Authority, each linked for download from this page.
How do I authenticate with the Chicago Transit Authority API?
Chicago Transit Authority uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Chicago Transit Authority Authentication.
How much does the Chicago Transit Authority API cost?
APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Chicago Transit Authority, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.
Is the Chicago Transit Authority API ready for AI agents?
Chicago Transit Authority has a Kin Score of 36.1 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 22.7 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.
Work with this as data
Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.