About Chi Hack Night and the Ghost Bus team
Chi Hack Night is a free, weekly event in Chicago to build, share, and learn about tools to serve the public good. Chi Hack Night relies on volunteers who want to make our city more just, equitable, transparent and delightful to live in through data, design, and technology. Chi Hack Night is registered as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
The Ghost Bus project was run by volunteer Chicagoans who have an interest in making Chicago better through data and technology. Although this project is no longer active, there are still many opportunities to get involved with other breakout groups at Chi Hack Night. CHN welcomes contributions from folks of any background whether in technology like data science, front- or back-end software engineering, and web-development, or backgrounds in journalism, policy, copywriting, community organizing and activism. Come join us!
About Our Impact
Some examples of how our data has been used include:
- Block Club Chicago used Ghost Bus data in their reporting on a CTA bus driver whose death behind the wheel went unnoticed for an hour.
- Commuters Take Action compared scheduled train arrivals with actual run trains, then posted the percentage breakdown of each train line.
- Active Transportation Alliance advocated for commuters by revealing ghost buses along specific routes.
- Equiticity examined bus reliability in North Lawndale.
- South Side Weekly mentioned the project in an op-ed on inequity in Chicago public transit.
- Ethan A. composed a data analysis paper.
- Kristen H. analyzed actual and scheduled headways as a learning exercise.