[GTFS Digest] December 2023 - What You Need to Know Before 2024¶
In this edition, you'll find shoutouts to our top contributors, details on recently adopted proposals, active discussions, and upcoming events. We also spotlight key tools and ways to stay connected with the GTFS community. Dive in to stay informed on the latest updates as we head into 2024.
Welcome to the GTFS Digest, a monthly resource generated by MobilityData to keep you updated on GTFS developments.
GTFS relies on community contributions. Help us capture these updates for our next digest by sharing your developments with us at specifications@mobilitydata.org.
We value your feedback on this first release and invite you to fill out this form to help us improve and reach the full potential of this tool.
🏅 Contributor Shoutouts¶
gcamp
- Moved the GTFS Trip-Modifications proposal to the Pull Request stage and collaboratively engaged with the community to facilitate its progression to a voting phase. This is effective advocacy in action!
barbagus
- Shoutout for redacting your first issue #409 with great clarity and high detail. Very elegantly put!
abyrd
- Hats off for delivering meticulous reviews on active Pull Requests, this is pure gold!
ponlawat-w
- Shoutout for contributing in your first PR #412 by bringing editorial corrections to the attention of the community.
🚀 Recently Adopted¶
Best practices: adding Dataset Publishing guidelines and Practice Recommendations for all files #406
This proposal focuses on adding the Dataset Publishing & General Practice guidelines, and Practice Recommendations for all files into the GTFS specification's reference file. This represents the second phase of the merging of Best Practices into the GTFS specification as outlined in issue #396.
[GTFS-Fares v2] Add networks.txt & route_networks.txt #405
GTFS-Schedule and GTFS-Fares v2 data are not always produced by the same organization/departments, and they are not always updated at the same frequency. This proposal allows the production of Fares and Schedule Data separately.
🗳️ Currently Voting¶
Remove Best Practices content merged into spec (Phase 2) #60
After PR #406 merged specific best practices directly into the GTFS specification, this proposal removes the duplicated content from the Best Practices document, consolidating a single source of truth. Vote closes on 2023-12-26.
📂 Active Proposals¶
The GTFS-Flex proposal allows passengers to discover demand-responsive services on trip planners; it has undergone multiple discussions and is currently being reviewed by contributors.
- Most recent GTFS-Flex Working Group Meeting held on November 1, 2023:
- Agreed on dedicated foreign keys in stop_times.txt for issue (google/transit#398).
- Reverted to using location_groups.txt and removed its references to location.geojson ids (google/transit#397).
- Maintained pickup_type=3 restriction for hail-and-ride/taxi-like use cases (google/transit#400).
- Check out the last outstanding issues here and here.
Trip-Modifications are modifications done to a trip to modify its shape, remove stops that are not served, and potentially add temporary stops. Trip-Modifications is mainly used for visualizing detours and updating realtime predictions.
[GTFS-Fares v2] Add rule_priority to fare_leg_rules.txt #418
The rule_priority field defines the order of priority in which matching rules are applied to legs, allowing certain rules to take precedence over others. Its presence acts as a trigger, shifting the empty semantics from "anything except" to “doesn’t affect matching.”
🔥 Most Active Conversations¶
Modifications to the GTFS Governance: Phasing Plan #413
MobilityData suggests refinements to improve both the formal amendment process and informal aspects of GTFS governance. Included in the issue are common community-identified problems and a proposed phased plan.
Required type of transportation at routes level may lack flexibility (multi-modal routes) #409
Some routes are designed to be operated with both trains and buses depending on the trip. In the current GTFS specification, the "type of transportation" is a routes attribute and as such, cannot elegantly handle such use cases.
Slack conversation in #mobilitydata
Melinda would love to get your insights on Best Practices for feed consumers and app developers. She asks: “all the best practices so far are intended for GTFS creators, right? Has anyone thought about a separate set of best practices for developers working with GTFS datasets?”
Steve could use your help to answer these questions: “Does anyone know of a tool/service that lets you visualize a GTFS file on a map without having to convert to other formats?”
📅 Upcoming Events¶
Trip-Modifications - Discussing the Proposal (Meeting) | January 10, 2024 @ 11am EST
GTFS-Flex - Working Group Meeting | January 17, 2024 @ 10 am EST
🛠️ Tools update¶
New Release: Canonical GTFS Schedule Validator
It supports the latest spec additions, and features a new summary section of the validation report, including tags to see if a feed has GTFS components like Blocks, Frequencies, or Fares v2.
Join the GTFS Community¶
GitHub: google/transit: Share your ideas with the community! Join the official GTFS GitHub repository.
GTFS-changes: Get updates as soon as they happen, join the GTFS-changes google groups to get information about new pull requests and votes.
GTFS-realtime: Talk everything Realtime and stay up to date. This group is discussing the GTFS Realtime, asking questions, and proposing changes.
GTFS.org: The official GTFS documentation website. Here you will find frequently updated resources for your GTFS needs.
MobilityData Slack: Have a question about GTFS or need to connect with the community? Join in on GTFS slack conversations. This is a great place to have questions answered quickly by the over 1,300 mobility enthusiasts navigating our channels.
Thank you for reading the first GTFS Digest! We look forward to bringing you the latest GTFS updates in 2024 and beyond.