The Wyoming Department of Transportation is removing eight of its Twitter accounts after the social media platform recently announced changes to its application programming interface platform. Keeping the accounts would mean unnecessary costs for W.Y.D.O.T. and potentially deprive Wyomingites of vital information.
The A.P.I. platform allowed W.Y.D.O.T. to send automated tweets straight from the agency’s 511 tools, including travel alerts, crash alerts, and road closure information. Twitter has recently announced changes to its A.P.I. platform, including limiting the number of tweets per hour and implementing a fee system for those accounts.
This would mean that, in the event of a serious incident on a Wyoming highway, anyone following a W.Y.D.O.T. Twitter account for in-the-moment information might not get it. Either W.Y.D.O.T. would have to be highly selective with what they posted to avoid the per-hour limit, or followers would not get information after a certain point.
“W.Y.D.O.T.’s accounts were created to give the public real-time updates on winter storms, crashes, and other travel impacts,” said Vince Garcia, W.Y.D.O.T. Geographic Information Systems/Intelligent Transportation System program manager. “So not only would the state have to pay a fee for each account, but we have concerns that the updates about rapidly changing conditions will be so limited that they will fail to reach the people who need them.”
The following W.Y.D.O.T. Twitter accounts will soon be removed:
- @WYDOT_Central
- @WYDOT_Northwest
- @WYDOT_Southwest
- @WYDOT_Southeast
- @WYDOT_Northeast
- @WYDOT_I80
- @WYDOT_I90
- @WYDOT_I25
Fortunately, the same information is readily available to the public for free through W.Y.D.O.T.’s 511 Notify system and other 511 tools.
Users who follow the automated W.Y.D.O.T. accounts – – are encouraged to sign up for 511 Notify to continue to receive important road and weather condition information and alerts.
The information will be the same but delivered as an email or text message rather than a tweet. The same information is available via W.Y.D.O.T.’s 511 app, Wyoming 511, and the 511 travel information website.
W.Y.D.O.T. will continue to monitor Twitter’s API policy and will consider reinstating the accounts in the future.
“Statistically, W.Y.D.O.T.’s Twitter accounts are the least-used tool that we offer for road and travel information,” Garcia said.
Accounts that are not automated, including @WYDOTNews, will remain active.
