MTA Service Alerts for Subways, Buses, and Rail Lines

Service alerts inform passengers of scheduled and unscheduled events affecting the MTA transit network, including planned maintenance and unexpected incidents. Alerts are generated through continuous monitoring of station locations, track statuses, and external factors. The dataset is provided by data.ny.gov and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Classify alert types (e.g., planned work vs. accidents) using the Status Label and Description columns.
• Analyze temporal patterns of service disruptions by aggregating alerts by the Date and Agency fields.
• Identify most frequently affected services or routes by analyzing the Affected and Agency columns.
• Track the lifecycle of a specific incident by joining records on Event ID and Update Number.
• Generate summaries of active alerts for passenger information systems using the Header and Description text.

Strengths

• Data is updated regularly, with a last update timestamp of March 2026.
• Alerts cover multiple transit agencies including Metro North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road, and buses.

Limitations

• Unknown total row count and temporal coverage depth beyond the start date of April 2020.
• Sample data is unavailable, preventing assessment of data completeness and null value prevalence.

Provenance

Source

data.ny.gov

Collection Method

Generated through continuous monitoring of the transit system for planned and unplanned events.

Time Range

Beginning April 2020

Freshness

Updated regularly, last updated 2026-03-20.

Geography

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) network serving New York City and surrounding regions.