Have you ever been frustrated when looking for a parking spot in downtown Chattanooga, or sat wondering at a CARTA bus stop if you missed your bus or if it was just running late? Open Chattanooga is sponsoring a transportation themed hack-a-thon to address these and other common transportation woes thru open data and technology. 

Open Chattanooga's Transportation Hack-a-thon is not just for geeks and transportation professionals. It is for anyone who has ever had frustrations with some part of our transportation systems and thought, "there has to be a better way."

What the heck is a hack-a-thon anyway?

A hack-a-thon is a event where programmers (geeks) meet to do collaborative computer programming. These hack-a-thons are very much in the spirit of collaboration and openness. In our case, this hack-a-thon is centered around the theme of transportation. Just in case you were wondering, no you don't have to be a programmer to attend. In fact, we need transportation users, professional, designers or just anyone interested to attend to make is event successful. 

Chattanooga is a Code for America Brigade alpha city and this event is part of the Brigade's "Code Across America" event during which several other hack-a-thons across the country will be occuring.

What will  the Transportation Hack-a-thon  discuss?

Transportation is a major metropolitan issue, with direct impacts on economic strength, environmental sustainability, and social equity.  Recent advances in technology (“web 2.0”, mobile computing, open source software, open data and APIs, and spatial analysis) present an opportunity to improve mobility more immediately and at a lower cost than has ever been possible in the past.

Submit and vote on transportation applications you would like to see in Chattanooga at http://hackchatt.uservoice.com.

Open Chattanooga's Transportation Hack-a-thon will focus on major themes such as:

• Open transit data: What are the best practices for developers to use it and transit agencies to publish it? What are the technical challenges?
• How can developers help transit agencies lower the cost of technology?
• What are some of Chattanooga's most pressing transportation problems and how can they be addressed with technology?

The day will be designed to identify pressing transportation problems and creative solutions to those problems using a collaborative/interactive process. As a result, what comes out of the hack-a-thon will depend on who attends. That being said, the following are some of the hard outcomes we hope to achieve: 

• Release of a new multi-modal trip planner called Routr
• Updating Open Chattanooga's open data website to provide more data to the general public and civic hackers (you can view our transportation data on the website here, more data coming!)
• Get transportation professionals, users and civic hackers in the same room together and see what happens!

List of the day's program (This is a ever evolving event so the program may change)

8:30 - Welcome and Introduction

9:00 - Hack-a-thon Overview

9:30 - Problem working sessions

10:30 - Teams created/hacking begins

12:00 Lunch on your own ... sorry no sponsors yet, but if you're interested contact us!

1:00 - Keep hacking

3:30 - Start preparing for presentation

4:00 - Teams presentations

4:30 - We're done

The Transportation Hack-a-thon will bring together thinkers and doers in the fields of transportation and technology for learning, debating, connecting, and creating. If you talk about Open Chattanooga's Hack-a-thon on Twitter, you can use the hashtag #hackCHA.

This event is brought to you by Open Chattanooga, Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Agency (CARTA), City of Chattanooga Office of Sustainability and The Company Lab.