MBTA

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) V3 API provides fast, easy access to MBTA schedules, alerts, and real-time information using the JSON:API format. Free API keys are available via the developer portal.

MBTA publishes 12 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Alerts API, Facilities API, Lines API, and 9 more. Tagged areas include Boston, Massachusetts, Public Transportation, Real-Time, and Transit.

The MBTA catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

MBTA’s developer surface includes authentication, developer portal, signup flow, engineering blog, and 9 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

35.8/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 23/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 98/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 published contract

Boston Massachusetts Public Transportation Real-Time Transit

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0

Composite quality — 35.8/100 · thin

Contract Quality 9.6 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 8.9 / 17

Access Clarity 4.3 / 17

Operational Transparency 1.3 / 11

Contract Governance 1.4 / 10

Discoverability 5.6 / 9

Regulatory Posture 1.5 / 15

Agent readiness — 23/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship Ask about this →
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes Ask about this →
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0 Ask about this →
Request/Response Examples +7 pts — share of operations carrying request/response examples; else an Examples / Code Samples link Ask about this →
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document Ask about this →
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented) Ask about this →

6 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 25.5 — up to +14.9 composite points Ask about this →
Contract Quality scores 45.1 — up to +13.7 composite points Ask about this →
Operational Transparency scores 11.9 — up to +11.5 composite points Ask about this →

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

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Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/mbta/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/mbta to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

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)	covered	26.8 (thin)	-	1
Raycast Store Extensions (first-party publishers + community-wrapped products)	covered	26.8 (thin)	-	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 1

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.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 12

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

MBTA Alerts API

Service disruption communications

MBTA Facilities API

Stop amenities such as elevators and bike racks

MBTA Lines API

Transit lines grouped by mode

MBTA Predictions API

Real-time arrival and departure forecasts

MBTA RoutePatterns API

Possible travel patterns within a route

MBTA Routes API

Route information per line

MBTA Schedules API

Scheduled stop times

MBTA Services API

Operational dates and frequencies

MBTA Shapes API

Trip route polylines for mapping

MBTA Stops API

Boarding and disembarking locations

MBTA Trips API

Vehicle journey definitions

MBTA Vehicles API

Vehicle movement and position data

Scroll for all 12

Open Collections 13

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

MBTA V3 Alerts API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Facilities API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Lines API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Predictions API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts RoutePatterns API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Routes API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Schedules API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Services API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Shapes API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Stops API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Trips API

OPEN COLLECTION

MBTA V3 Alerts Vehicles API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 13

MBTA API pricing

Not yet checked against MBTA'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 MBTA's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

MBTA Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

MBTA Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

MBTA Finops

FINOPS

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs. Counts are the severity each rule declares, not results of running them.

MBTA API Rules

48 rules · 46 error-severity 1 warn-severity 1 info-severity

SPECTRAL

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

MBTA Authentication

apiKey · 2 schemes

SECURITY

MBTA Domain Security

TLSv1.2 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access (API Evangelist recommendations) 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

MBTA Agentic Access

22 operations

22 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Portal

Portal

Signup

Signup

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

TermsOfService

TermsOfService

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

LinkedIn

Blog

Blog

Source (apis.yml)

aid: mbta
name: MBTA
description: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) V3 API provides fast, easy access to MBTA schedules, alerts,
  and real-time information using the JSON:API format. Free API keys are available via the developer portal.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/mbta.png
tags:
- Boston
- Massachusetts
- Public Transportation
- Real-Time
- Transit
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/mbta/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2025-02-24'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: mbta:mbta-alerts-api
  name: MBTA Alerts API
  description: Service disruption communications
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Alerts
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-alerts-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-facilities-api
  name: MBTA Facilities API
  description: Stop amenities such as elevators and bike racks
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Facilities
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-facilities-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-lines-api
  name: MBTA Lines API
  description: Transit lines grouped by mode
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Lines
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-lines-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-predictions-api
  name: MBTA Predictions API
  description: Real-time arrival and departure forecasts
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Predictions
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-predictions-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-routepatterns-api
  name: MBTA RoutePatterns API
  description: Possible travel patterns within a route
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - RoutePatterns
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-routepatterns-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-routes-api
  name: MBTA Routes API
  description: Route information per line
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Routes
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-routes-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-schedules-api
  name: MBTA Schedules API
  description: Scheduled stop times
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Schedule
  tags_raw:
  - Schedules
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-schedules-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-services-api
  name: MBTA Services API
  description: Operational dates and frequencies
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Services
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-services-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-shapes-api
  name: MBTA Shapes API
  description: Trip route polylines for mapping
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Shapes
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-shapes-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-stops-api
  name: MBTA Stops API
  description: Boarding and disembarking locations
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Stops
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-stops-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-trips-api
  name: MBTA Trips API
  description: Vehicle journey definitions
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Trips
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-trips-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- aid: mbta:mbta-vehicles-api
  name: MBTA Vehicles API
  description: Vehicle movement and position data
  humanURL: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  baseURL: https://api-v3.mbta.com
  tags:
  - Vehicles
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/mbta-vehicles-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
  - type: Reference
    url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/mbta-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/mbta-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/mbta-finops.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.mbta.com/
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/mbta-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/mbta-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/mbta-authentication.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mbta
- type: Portal
  url: https://www.mbta.com/developers
- type: Signup
  url: https://api-v3.mbta.com/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/mbta
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2017/10/27/massdot-developers-license-agreement.pdf
- url: https://www.mbta.com/news/rss.xml
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

MBTA API — frequently asked questions

Does MBTA have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 12 APIs from MBTA, including MBTA Alerts API, MBTA Facilities API and MBTA Lines API, and 9 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the MBTA API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 12 OpenAPI specifications for MBTA, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the MBTA API?

MBTA uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 2 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as MBTA Authentication.

How much does the MBTA API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for MBTA, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the MBTA API ready for AI agents?

MBTA has a Kin Score of 35.8 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 22.7 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-13.

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apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
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