canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/surrey.ca

# City of Surrey APIs

City of Surrey publishes open transportation data APIs for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. The Open511 API reports real-time road obstruction and traffic events, and the Traffic Loop Count API exposes traffic loop locations and vehicle counts recorded in 15-minute intervals. Both are open endpoints that require no authentication, making Surrey's road network data available for mapping, monitoring, and analysis.

## For AI agents

An agent can pull real-time road obstruction and traffic events from the Open511 API and combine them with traffic loop locations and 15-minute vehicle counts from the Traffic Loop Count API to build a live picture of road conditions and volumes across the City of Surrey.

## Scope

Use for: Reading City of Surrey open transportation data: real-time road obstruction events and traffic loop vehicle counts for the Surrey road network.

Not supported:
- payments
- user authentication
- write operations
- cities beyond Surrey

## APIs

| API | Category | Endpoints | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| City of Surrey Open511 API | developer-tools | 4 | Programmatically access City of Surrey Open511 API resources. |
| City of Surrey Traffic Loop Count API. | maps-geolocation | 2 | Programmatically access City of Surrey Traffic Loop Count API. |

## Which API to use

| Need | API | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Real-time road obstructions and traffic events | open511 | Open511 reports current road-event and obstruction data for the City of Surrey. |
| Traffic volumes and loop sensor counts | trafficloops | The Traffic Loop Count API gives loop locations and vehicle counts in 15-minute intervals. |

## Cross-API use cases

### Live road condition dashboard

Combine real-time obstruction events from Open511 with 15-minute traffic loop counts to show where incidents are occurring and how they affect vehicle volumes across Surrey.

Example prompt: Fetch current road events from open511 and matching loop counts from trafficloops, then flag intersections where an event coincides with a volume drop

### Congestion analysis around incidents

Correlate reported obstructions from Open511 with nearby loop counts to estimate how each event changes traffic flow at affected intersections.

Example prompt: For each Open511 event, pull the nearest trafficloops counts and compute the change in volume before and during the event

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring these APIs by hand means pointing at Surrey's separate data.surrey.ca and gis.surrey.ca hosts and parsing two different response shapes. Once Jentic One is installed, you or your agent can find and add either API from the Jentic directory and call it without hand-coding the hosts.
- **Permission scoping:** Both APIs are read-only open data, so your own rules in Jentic One can scope the agent to just the road-event or loop-count operations it needs. There are no write operations to allow.
- **Credential handling:** Neither API requires a credential, so there is nothing to store. Your own Jentic One instance calls the open endpoints at execution time and no secret enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** An agent searches the Jentic directory by intent, such as getting current road events or traffic loop counts for Surrey, and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related vendors

- **HERE** — Provides traffic and road-event data as an alternative when coverage beyond Surrey is needed.
- **TomTom** — Offers traffic flow and incident data for broader geographic areas.
- **511.org** — Publishes Open511-format road-event and transit data for another region.

## FAQ

### What can an agent do across City of Surrey's APIs?

An agent can read live road obstruction and traffic events from the Open511 API and pull traffic loop locations and vehicle counts from the Traffic Loop Count API. Together these give a real-time and historical view of road conditions and volumes across the City of Surrey.

### Do the two APIs cover the same data?

No. Open511 reports road-event and obstruction information, while the Traffic Loop Count API reports where traffic loops are located and how many vehicles passed in each 15-minute interval. They complement each other and can be cross-referenced by loop identifier.

### Do I need separate credentials for each API?

No. Both APIs are open and require no authentication, so there is no key or token to obtain for either one.

### How fresh is the data?

The Open511 API reports road events in real time. The Traffic Loop Count API records counts in 15-minute intervals, though the underlying data is currently loaded once per day. Check the response fields for timestamps before relying on freshness.

### What geographic area do these APIs cover?

Both APIs cover only the City of Surrey, British Columbia. They do not provide data for other municipalities or regions.

### Can an agent write or change data through these APIs?

No. Both APIs are read-only sources of published municipal data, so an agent can retrieve information but cannot create or modify records.