The Metropolitan Transportation Authority resumed posting service alerts on Twitter Thursday afternoon, after leaving the social media site in a dispute over reliability and cost.
Twitter, which has been feuding with several celebrities and institutions over charging for various services, had attempted to charge the MTA more than a half million dollars a year, the agency said. In announcing April 27 that it would pull its service alerts from Twitter, the MTA said that the site was unreliable. In addition to the MTA itself, the subway and both the Long Island Rail Road and Metro North, all directed their riders to various apps that provided the same service alerts.
On Thursday, the MTA said, “The MTA informed Twitter senior management that it would not pay to provide the public with critical service information. Twitter got the message and reversed its plan to charge the MTA more than half a million dollars per year for these alerts, so now no transit agency will need to pay. The MTA also received written assurances from Twitter that reliability on the platform will be guaranteed through technological means, so riders can count on receiving messages posted on Twitter. As a result, the MTA will resume providing service alerts on its Twitter accounts.
“As we have said before, there are redundant tools that customers are able to use to communicate with the MTA and receive service alerts in real time including the MYmta and TrainTime apps, the MTA’s homepage at MTA.info, email alerts and text messages, in addition to thousands of screens in stations, on trains and in buses – all of which riders have been taking advantage of since Twitter involuntarily interrupted the MTA’s access to its platform on April 27. We will continue to closely monitor to ensure Twitter meets the reliability standard riders deserve.”
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