MBTA Boston Realtime Vehicles Scraper

MBTA Boston Realtime Vehicles Scraper

Scrape realtime vehicle positions from the MBTA Boston transit network, up to a million records per run. Each record includes route, stop, bearing, current status, and timestamp. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The MBTA's official API needs a developer account and key, and rate-limits you. This reads the public realtime vehicle feed directly, filtered by route or route type, and returns each match in one fixed schema. Get live positions for subway, bus, commuter rail, light rail, and ferry vehicles across Boston.

Who uses it	What they scrape MBTA Boston for
Transit app developers	Build a live map of where every bus and train is right now.
Operations analysts	Monitor headway adherence and bunching across the network.
Commuter advocates	Track on-time performance for a specific bus or subway line.
Data journalists	Investigate service gaps and delays with timestamped vehicle data.

What it does

This Actor collects realtime MBTA vehicle positions by route or route type, and returns each one as a flat row.

• 🚇 Route filter: target a single route like Red, Orange, 66, or Green-B, or leave empty for all routes.
• 🚌 Route type filter: narrow to Light rail, Subway, Commuter rail, Bus, or Ferry only.
• 📊 Realtime fields: latitude, longitude, bearing, current stop, current status, and timestamp.
• 📦 Flat output: one row per vehicle observation, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with MBTA Boston data

🚇 Build a live transit dashboard.

A developer runs the Actor every 30 seconds for all subway routes and plots vehicle positions on a map for a public-facing website.

🚌 Monitor bus bunching on a key route.

An operations analyst filters by route 66 and collects positions every minute to measure headway variance during the morning peak.

🚃 Audit commuter rail on-time performance.

A transit advocate scrapes the commuter rail route type daily and compares scheduled versus actual arrival times at each stop.

📈 Feed a realtime prediction model.

A data scientist collects all vehicle positions for a week and trains a model to predict delays based on bearing, status, and time of day.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public realtime feed directly, no registration needed.
Live positions	Latitude, longitude, bearing, and current stop for every vehicle.
Route targeting	Filter by specific route ID or by mode like Bus or Subway.
Scalable runs	Collect up to a million records per run for long-duration monitoring.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets MBTA Boston the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	MBTA Boston Realtime Vehicles Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When MBTA Boston changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a route ID or route type, alone or together, and filters run as each record is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.85
1,000 results	$8.50
10,000 results	$85.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the MBTA Boston Realtime Vehicles Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to MBTA Boston through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/mbta-realtime-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your route ID or route type filter is valid. Try leaving both filters empty to see all vehicles. Also confirm the MBTA is operating at the time of your run.

The Actor runs but stops after very few records.

Increase the maximum records input. If the route you filtered has few active vehicles, you may need to broaden the filter or run during peak service hours.

Positions seem stale or not updating.

The MBTA feed updates every few seconds. Schedule your Actor to run more frequently, and check that your run is not being rate-limited by the source.

I see duplicate vehicle IDs in my dataset.

This is expected. Each record is a single observation at a point in time. The same vehicle will appear many times as it moves. Use the timestamp to order them.

The route ID I entered is not recognized.

Route IDs are case-sensitive. Use the exact ID as shown in MBTA data, like Red, Orange, Green-B, or 66. Check the MBTA website for a current list.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need an MBTA API key?	No. This Actor reads the public realtime vehicle feed directly, so no developer account or key is required.
What data does each record contain?	Each record includes the vehicle ID, route ID, latitude, longitude, bearing, current stop, current status, and a timestamp of the observation.
Can I filter by a specific bus or train line?	Yes. Use the Route Filter input to specify a route ID like Red, Orange, 66, or Green-B. Leave it empty to get all routes.
How do I get only subway vehicles?	Set the Route Type filter to Subway. You can also filter by Light rail, Commuter rail, Bus, or Ferry.
How many records can I collect in one run?	You can set the maximum records up to 1,000,000 per run. The Actor will stop once it reaches that count.
How often should I run this Actor?	Vehicle positions update every few seconds. For live tracking, schedule the Actor to run every 15 to 60 seconds.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
Does this cover the entire MBTA network?	Yes. It covers all modes: subway, bus, commuter rail, light rail, and ferry, for the whole MBTA service area.
Can I get historical vehicle positions?	This Actor collects current realtime positions. To build history, schedule repeated runs and store the datasets over time.
What is the current status field?	It indicates whether the vehicle is in transit to a stop, stopped at a stop, or another operational state as reported by the MBTA feed.

Related actors

• mbta-realtime-scraper: Use this for live vehicle positions. For scheduled data, look for a GTFS static scraper instead.

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.