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From
NY1:
Like any New Yorker, Quemuel Arroyo knows the ins, the outs, the ups
and the downs of mass transit. He rides the subway, after all.
"My MetroCard is the closest I'll get to a driver's license," Arroyo said.
As
a rider with a disability, moving around requires more than a little
effort to navigate an old system where fewer than one-quarter of the 468
stations are fully accessible.
"Every day, I have to map a route
and cross-reference that route with the New York City Transit website to
make sure that those elevators are hopefully working," Arroyo said.
So
on Wednesday, he joined officials from the MTA, AT&T and Transit
Wireless to announce App Quest 3.0, a contest that invites developers to
mine the authority's data to create apps for commuters.
"This
technology has the potential to revolutionize the way that people use
our system, from tourists trying to find their way to people with
disabilities to lifelong New Yorkers who want to be in the subway car
closest to the exit they use every day," said MTA Chairman Thomas
Prendergast.
The contest offers $50,000 in prize money from
AT&T, and for the first time, one of the prizes is a $10,000 payout
for creating the best accessibility app for commuters with disabilities.
"Developers
can come up with helpful ways for disabled communities to find the
entrances and exits more easily, to understand where elevators are and
where they're not, to understand when you get off a subway, which way to
turn to find the nearest exit," said Marissa Shorenstein, president of
AT&T New York.
Arroyo said having real-time information in a
system where more stations are getting wireless reception would be a
huge boon for the 850,000 New Yorkers with disabilities.
"The main challenge is elevators and escalators, knowing when they're out of service and knowing where they are," he said.
The
challenge, in turn, for the tech-savvy set is to convert data about the
subway system into easy-to-use apps that fit in your hand.
App
developers have until February 3 at 5 p.m. to submit their apps for
consideration in the contest. Winners are set to be announced in
mid-March.
