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[GTFS Digest] August 2024 - A New Design for GTFS.org and 2 votes on the block

This month’s GTFS Digest features GTFS.org’s new design with improved navigation and a Community Section. We cover recent updates like conditional stops.txt and recommended headsigns, ongoing votes on polygon validity and transfer clarifications, and key discussions on trip scheduling. Don’t miss the GTFS Flex Webinar and GTFS-Fares v2 Meeting—explore the latest and join the conversation!

🏅 Contributor Shoutouts

Steve Gladstone, Steven White and Sam Hickey
Shoutout for your great inputs on GitHub and Slack. Your are helping advance GTFS one comment at a time!

Leonard Ehrenfried
Thanks for advocating for changes in the way we use GeoJSON in GTFS.

Miklcct
Last month you were once again very involved on GitHub! Thanks for what you do!

Andoni Aranguren Ubierna & Sophia Chong
You posted your first threads on the GTFS Slack! We are sure that the community will find it very helpful.

📢 Announcements

GTFS.org had a facelift
We’ve been hard at work gathering feedback and working to make GTFS.org the only place you need to visit for everything GTFS.

Whether you’re new to the transit specification or a seasoned GTFS veteran, GTFS.org has everything you need.

Here are some of the changes you can expect to see during your first visit:

🚀 Recently Adopted

Change stops.txt presence because of demand responsive services #472
This PR proposes to update the presence of stops.txt after the adoption of flex, changing it from Required to Conditionally Required (required if locations.geojson doesn't exist, optional otherwise).

Add that headsigns are recommended #485
This PR proposes to add a statement that headsigns is recommended for all services with headsign text displayed on the vehicle which may be used to distinguish amongst trips in a route.

🗳️ Currently Voting

Add validity rules for polygons in locations.geojson #476
This PR proposes to refer to the OpenGIS Simple Features Specification, section 6.1.11 to improve the validity rules for flex polygons, instead of describing all the ways in which polygons can be invalid in GTFS.

  • The voting period ends on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 at 23:59:59 UTC.

[Clarification] from/to_stop_id & from/to_trip_id description in transfers.txt
This PR clarifies the description of from/to_stop_id and from/to_trip_id in transfers.txt without changing the original semantics.

  • The voting period ends on Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 23:59:59 UTC.

📂 Active Proposals

[GTFS Fares v2] Area Set matching predicates #483
In the current fare_leg_rules.txt, only origin and destination areas can be used as predicates, which cannot effectively describe some more complex zonal fare structures. This PR suggests adding collections of stop areas or “area sets” as predicates.

Clarification of CANCELED/SKIPPED TripUpdates VS NO_SERVICE Alerts #482
This is a heavily debated proposal. Contributors are currently debating:

  • Whether NO_SERVICE alerts can be used for routing or are only meant to provide messages.
  • Whether the specification allows for different interpretations among consumers.

Other open proposals:

🔥 Most Active Conversations

Allow specifying both the scheduled time and delay in StopTimeEvent for added and duplicated trips. #490
miklcct proposed updating the GTFS-RT spec to allow specifying both scheduled time and delay in StopTimeEvent for ADDED and DUPLICATED trips. This change would address issues with current limitations that prevent indicating scheduled times for these types of trips, especially in ad hoc or duplicated services. The proposal aims to maintain compatibility with existing systems while enhancing flexibility.

Have a way to explicitly communicate that a trip does not have any headsigns #488
evansiroky proposed to adjust the specification writing to include an explicit statement that indicates that if no headsign is provided, then it should be assumed that the vehicle does not feature a headsign.

It is impossible to specify a different arrival_time and departure_time in a GTFS-RT trip modification object #487
Miklcct proposes to add a layover field in the ReplacementStop object to specify the duration of an extended stop at a station for vehicles on a detour journey.

Scheduled reinforcement trips #481
Stefan addresses the need for GTFS to support scheduled reinforcement trips that only become available in travel information services once confirmed by the operator, proposing an additional column in trips.txt to mark these trips, and discusses the limitations and potential solutions within existing GTFS and GTFS-RT frameworks.

Slack conversations on #gtfs-realtime

Steve Gladstone invites the community to share their thoughts on PR#268 regarding the introduction of a potential GTFS Pathways realtime status feature in GTFS-RT.

Sophia Chong asks the community for their experience with validation methods or techniques that they have been using or have developed, in the context of TripModifications recent introduction into the spec.

Slack conversations on #gtfs-flex

Aaron Fowler asks: Are there any known issues in combining regular GTFS files with GTFS-Flex files into a single static GTFS zip file?

Andoni Aranguren Ubierna can use your help with research on the use and necessities for car on demand mobility in the Canary Islands and he’s having some issues trying to feed OpenTripPlanner the required GTFS-Flex files.

📅 Upcoming Events

GTFS Flex Public webinar for Asia-Pacific | September 10, 2024 @ 7 PM EDT / 8 AM JST / 9AM AEST

Topics : GTFS-Flex: How to implement

GTFS-Fares v2 – Monthly meetings | September 24, 2024 @ 11 am EDT

Topics : GTFS-Fares v2 extension Working Group Meeting

💬 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 this edition of the GTFS Digest! We look forward to bringing you the latest GTFS updates in 2024 and beyond.