With the API, developers and publishers can enhance the value of local content by associating information about nearby transit stops and routes or lines serving those stops. The announcement follows on the heels of UMI's release last week of enhancements to the Graphserver open-source transportation routing engine (view press release here).

"Public transportation plays a significant role in the lives of people living in urban areas," commented Ian White, CEO of Urban Mapping.

"With the free API any piece of local content can be transit-enhanced. This can positively impact local search opportunities for businesses near station stops and improve the overall quality of life for those that rely on mass transit on a near daily basis."

The Mass Transit Proximity API enables interactive local search, mobile search, social networking, real estate, yellow pages and other location-based applications to provide end users with localized transit information for subway, commuter rail or bus stations. Other potential uses include data mining, economic development and direct marketing.

Urban Mapping currently provides public transit trip planning for over 65 systems in the United States, Canada and select European cities.

Urban Mapping uses a variety of research techniques to aggregate a broad collection of over 100 attributes, including: egress points, station accessibility, amenities, staffed hours, exit type, sleeper cars, parking facilities and station/line transfers. Normalized schedules are available in both headway and tabular formats.