WMATA Realtime Snapshot

Overview

Provide a point-in-time mirror of Washington DC Metro's realtime train schedule

Installation

1. Install the package

   pip install django-wmata-realtime-snapshot

2. Add the app to your django project's settings

   INSTALLED_APPS = (
       ...
       wmata_realtime_snapshot,
   )

3. Get a WMATA API key

   If you don't already have a WMATA API account, sign up here: https://developer.wmata.com/signup

   Alternatively, you may have success using the demo key provided here: https://developer.wmata.com/Products

   Once you have a key, (e.g. 1234IAMAKEY), you can use it to download a dump of the realtime data.

4. Download a JSON and/or XML dump from WMATA

   These instructions are for a UNIX based system.

   JSON Dump:

   curl https://api.wmata.com/StationPrediction.svc/json/GetPrediction/All?api_key=1234IAMAKEY > realtime_dump.json

   XML Dump:

   curl https://api.wmata.com/StationPrediction.svc/GetPrediction/All?api_key=1234IAMAKEY > realtime_dump.xml

   To download both at the same time:

   curl https://api.wmata.com/StationPrediction.svc/json/GetPrediction/All?api_key=1234IAMAKEY > realtime_dump.json & curl https://api.wmata.com/StationPrediction.svc/GetPrediction/All?api_key=1234IAMAKEY > realtime_dump.xml

5. Add your dumps to the Django settings file

   In your Django settings, define the following variables for the dumps you want to serve.

   WMATA_JSON_DUMP='path/to/realtime_dump.json'
   WMATA_XML_DUMP='path/to/realtime_dump.xml'
   

   Any endpoint type (json or xml) that does not have a dump file to read will return a json/xml error message when querying the snapshot API:

   {"Error": "No JSON resource has been defined. Please read the installation instructions."}

   <Error>No XML resource has been defined. Please read the installation instructions.</Error>

6. Add a url endpoint

   url(r'^mirror/', include('wmata_realtime_snapshot.urls', namespace='wmata_realtime_snapshot')),

7. Visit the API

   The API path is the same as the real WMATA API for easy plug-n-play:

   http://localhost:8000/mirror/StationPrediction.svc/json/GetPrediction/All
   http://localhost:8000/mirror/StationPrediction.svc/GetPrediction/B01
   http://localhost:8000/mirror/StationPrediction.svc/json/GetPrediction/K08,D13,A05