Template:About Transitwiki
About TransitWiki
Managing a transit agency is a complicated process with an overwhelming number of moving parts. Technology is constantly changing, which makes it even harder to keep everything running smoothly. Given the constraints of limited staff and budget, it can be difficult for an agency to keep up with best practices. That’s where TransitWiki comes in. The free and open knowledge-sharing platform is a one-stop shop for everything you need to stay on top of the ever-changing world of public transportation, from summaries of the latest research from APTA and TCRP to one-pagers on the latest FTA programs.
How TransitWiki Works
While TransitWiki’s team of UCLA researchers can provide some of the information on the site, it’s professionals out in the field who really know what’s going on in the industry. Work that your agency does is likely relevant outside your area - a report assembled by the Chicago Transit Authority might contain information useful to LA Metro. Learning from peer agencies means wasting fewer resources on dead-end projects.
How to Contribute
TransitWiki is a public, user-editable website, allowing agencies to directly publish reports that they believe could be useful to others. This site is based on the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia and many other sites across the web. If you're familiar with how to navigate or edit Wikipedia, then TransitWiki.org should be straight forward. If not, see the MediaWiki FAQ. Once you make an account, our staff will confirm it and you can start adding articles using an intuitive web interface. You can post an entire report or pull out specific sections that you think are the most relevant to other agencies. Don’t have time to get the document formatted for the web? Send it to us and we’ll take care of the work.
Potential contributors often wonder if the have the authority to share agency documents online. Transit agencies can be competitive, and in-house reports might feel like secrets that need to be guarded. But the kind of research relevant to TransitWiki is typically covered by open records laws and is already internet-accessible. By proactively sharing documents on TransitWiki, agencies can take control of the messaging and make sure they are presented properly