Transit officials believed it was important to run their own information pipeline, addressing passengers directly. But they realized there was no one place for doing so. The agency has multiple websites, mobile apps and Twitter accounts. And, apart from having the channels to report on daily delays and breakdowns, they were thinking ahead to another huge disruption: next year’s shutdown of the L line to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

“We knew we had to do stuff on the tracks and in stations,” Ms. Hakim said. “We also knew we had to change the way we communicate.” She described the transit agency’s web presence as “very busy, very confusing and doesn’t work well on your mobile device.”

She said that developing MYmta meant changing the culture in an agency with long experience in issuing pronouncements but much less in reacting to feedback.

“What is the M.T.A. good at? Monologues,” Ms. Hakim said. By contrast, she described the philosophy behind the development of MYmta as: “You tell me what you’d like, and I’ll see if I can make it work on your device.”

“Having people rate us, that’s new territory for us,” she said.

The agency says its social media volume has skyrocketed in the last year, more than doubling every month. But for all the technology behind MYmta, it depends on people — Ms. Dragoo and 16 others who work in the Rail Control Center in Midtown Manhattan, the high-level hub for the subway system. There are metal detectors at the main entrance and, down an airy corridor, double sets of doors that unlock after an employee holds an identification card up to an electronic reader.

Beyond those doors is a room that looks like an election-night television studio — large, with lots of people who look very busy at lots of desks.