MARTA Partners with Tech Community for Yearlong Improvement Initiative

Do you love Atlanta? Want to make MARTA better? This is your chance. MARTA is embarking on a new strategic technology initiative that invites the Atlanta tech community to help create the next great thing in Atlanta transit. Over the course of the next year, MARTA is partnering with Sandbox ATL, Code for Atlanta, HackGT, and other community groups through a series of three 24-hour hackathons, semi-monthly work group sessions, and continual online interaction. It begins with the first MARTA Hackathon on Oct 28-29 at The Garage under Tech Square, the home of Sandbox ATL.

“MARTA is an important part of the city’s future and Sandbox is uniquely positioned to help MARTA build stronger relationships at the heart of Atlanta’s tech scene here in Tech Square, as well as with all our friends across the city’s growing network of tech hubs.”

— Scott Henderson, CEO of Sandbox Communities

MARTA is the 9th largest transit system in the US. [source]

“We’re looking forward to tapping into the creative and innovative minds in Atlanta’s tech community. Our goal is to stay on the cutting edge of amenities we offer our customers, and this Hackathon gives us an opportunity to see what’s out there and how we can use that knowledge to provide better transit services.”

— Ming Hsi, MARTA Chief Information Officer

Each of the three hackathons will offer the community the chance to create solutions for specific MARTA technology challenges using a combination of emerging technologies and open data sets. After each hackathon, teams and newcomers will have the opportunity to develop their ideas further through a series of semi-monthly in-person work sessions and get plugged into the burgeoning civic tech community led by Code for Atlanta. HackGT is helping to promote and assemble the city's world-class college talent to be part of this endeavor as well.

“Code for Atlanta is thrilled to partner with MARTA on this event. Most exciting is that MARTA is making a serious, meaningful effort to provide high-value open data to the hackathon participants. We hope that the example MARTA is setting will inspire more government agencies in the metro Atlanta region to open up their data.”

— Luigi Ray-Montanez, co-organizer, Code for Atlanta

In parallel to these efforts, MARTA and its media partners - including Hypepotamus - will share lessons learned and achievements unlocked in an open, transparent way that helps to grow the number of people engaged in this initiative, attract new funding and technology partners, and ultimately create a world-class transit system experience for all Atlantans and visitors. Media and partner inquiries can be directed to MARTAHackathon@sandboxatl.com.