MTA SMS Bot

Inspiration

We wanted to use the Twilio API tools.

What it does

You text the number 1 (646) 392-8126 either 1, 2, or 3 to receive service updates for the 1, 2, or 3 train respectively.

How We built it

We used the Python Request library to webscrape the MTA website for relevant information, and used BeautifulSoup to parse the HTML. We implemented the Twilio text message API with a Flask endpoint hosted on Heroku.

Challenges We ran into

Twilio would fail without clear error messages so we had to debug locally.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Build time: 3 hours

What we learned

Twilio's API is very easy to use

What's next for MTA SMS Bot

Add support for all trains Add more detailed responses Add support for individual

Built With

• beautiful-soup
• flask
• python
• request
• twilio