A Learning Experience

I didn’t start out with a project in mind. After fifteen years of business intelligence programming in Oracle Pl-SQL, Microsoft TSQL and, occasionally, SAS, I felt like branching out. I wanted to do something interesting with PostgreSQL, learn some Python and maybe do a bit of GIS.

I also thought I might leverage my small collection of single-board-computers, specifically the Raspberry Pi. The early models are great fun for small IOT projects but the computing power, expanded memory, and gigabit networking of the new 4B+ opened up some new possibilities. Could a credit-card-size computer handle a mainframe-size dataset?

More than anything else, the subway makes New York City possible. No other transportation system could move the 6.5 million daily riders the subway handled before the pandemic, at least not within a space that doesn’t strangle the city it’s supposed to serve. The trains are tracked as they trundle along 665 miles of track, among 472 stations, but not precisely.

New York’s MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) provides real-time data on the movements of trains within the subway system. This is generally provided for third-party “countdown clock” apps people can use track upcoming train arrivals.