MBTA Route Finder

An app that combines live transit predictions and smart event alerts with voice input and an interactive map—giving commuters better route options and transfer confidence ratings all in one place.

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Inspiration

The project was built to address a real pain point: finding the optimal transit route in Boston often requires juggling multiple apps, live data, and contextual factors. Commuters need to consider not just the fastest route, but also:

Transfer risks (will I miss my connection?) Real-time delays from the MBTA Weather conditions (walking in the rain takes longer) Event congestion (Red Sox games cause chaos at Kenmore station) MBTA Route Finder aims to consolidate all this intelligence into one intuitive interface with voice input and an interactive map.

What it does

Helps users find the fastest route between two stops on the MBTA system with real-time data and other factors (weather, events, congestion level, and more)

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Given that this was our first hackathon, we faced many challenges.

  • Learning to integrate AI into our workflow and being able to prompt it effectively
  • Learning to communicate and articulate our thoughts

  • Learning to be able to work quickly and constantly iterate

  • Regarding technical challenges:

  • Multi-Modal Pathfinding - Balancing train transfers with walking connections requires a sophisticated routing algorithm (Dijkstra + real-time enrichment)

  • Real-Time Data Integration - Syncing live MBTA predictions with precomputed routes while maintaining low latency

  • Transfer Risk Assessment - Determining which transfer times are "Risky" vs "Likely" based on train schedules

  • Walking Distance Accuracy - Using OSRM to calculate actual walking routes rather than crow-flies distances (takes 5-10 minutes to pre-compute)

  • Weather & Event Awareness - Integrating external APIs (Weather.gov) and detecting event impacts dynamically

  • Voice Input Parsing - Converting natural language like "Get me to Fenway from Downtown Crossing" into station selections

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for MBTA Route Finder

MBTA Route Finder is an intelligent real-time transit routing app that finds the fastest routes across Boston's MBTA system. It combines live transit predictions, weather-aware walking times, and smart event alerts with voice input and an interactive map—giving commuters better route options and transfer confidence ratings all in one place.

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