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[GTFS Digest] May 2025 - Have Your Say on cars_allowed and Cheers to This Month’s Contributors!

The May 2025 GTFS Digest is here! This month, the community dove in on some key proposals from last month like the support for displaying cEMV in GTFS, distance-based fare support, and the Governance process changes. Interesting conversations are being had about internal stop times best practices and making agency URLs optional, so join in on the discussion!

The GTFS Digest is a resource generated monthly by MobilityData providing an overview of developments on GTFS.

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🏅 Contributor Shoutouts

helomri
Thank you for your first contribution to the repo! Even the tiniest editorial change goes a long way in improving the adopter's experience.

Felix Grundling
Congratulations on supporting GTFS Flex in MOTIS!

Aaron Antrim, Cody Kraatz, Bibiana McHugh, Weston Shippy, Stefan de Konink, & Brian Ferris
Thank you for contributing to the GTFS Schedule Governance discussions this past month. Your comments are helping us solidify support for this change.

🗳️ Currently Voting

Add cars_allowed field to trips.txt #547

This PR proposes adding a cars_allowed field to trips.txt. There was a lot of discussion in issue #466 about how to add car information for ferries to GTFS. The discussion was centered around whether to use an approach with stop_times.txt or trips.txt.

🚀 Recently Adopted

More clarifications on trip modifications #542
This PR clarifies misconception on trip modifications, including:

  • Specify that the shape provided should be the full shape
  • Clarification on usage of ids inside a GTFS-rt
  • Clarification that linked entities should be done inside the same feed
  • The definition of shape_id that's inside TripProperties was not in sync between reference and the proto

📂 Active Proposals

[GTFS Fares v2] Semantics clarification #561
Based on recent discussions in the gtfs-fares Slack channel and working group, clarify some fares v2 related semantics including: Introduction of a Local Time data type, addition of an "effective fare leg"and a "timer should start from the first matched leg" clarification.

[GTFS-Fares v2] Add Distance-Based Fares #556
This PR adds a new functionality to allow the modelling of Distance-based fare systems, by introducing multiple new fields on fare_leg_rules.txt and stop_times.txt as well as a new fare_leg_distance_rules.txt file.

Add communication_period and impact_period #546
This proposal introduces two new fields: communication_period specifying the time that alerts should be displayed and impact_period to specify the time when the services are affected by the disruption. Additionally, it establishes rules to ensure these new fields are mutually exclusive with active_period for consistency.

Add cemv_support field in agency.txt and routes.txt #545
This proposal introduces a new cemv_support field in agency.txt and routes.txt to indicate if riders can use cEMV (contactless Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) to access a transit service under a specific agency or route.

[Governance] New GTFS Schedule Governance Proposal #544
MobilityData is proposing an update to the current GTFS governance process based on two years of community feedback. Key improvements include clearer documentation, structured proposal phases, and revised voting requirements.

  • A public information session was held in May and a final review period of at least two weeks has been announced.

Other open proposals:

🔥 Most Active Conversations

Make agency_url optional #563
Micheal proposes to make agency_url an optional field because some agencies don't have a website.

Best practices on stop_times.txt about internal timing points #560
Michael is asking whether it is appropriate to include in stop_times.txt locations where the service passes through without stopping—such as timing points or validation zones relevant to fares—but where passengers cannot board or alight.

Relax the requirement for in-seat transfer to allow attach / detaching vehicles in the middle of a trip #548
Michael questions the current requirement of in-seat transfers where carriages are attached / detached in the middle of a trip, which is common in the National Rail network. He proposes to relax the requirement of transfer_type = 4.

Slack conversations on #gtfs

Holger asked for clarification on inputting route types when they vary between Scheduled and In-Demand service.

Michael inquired about using internal timing points as stops.

Slack conversations on #gtfs-fares

Micheal asks about the GTFS-TravelRules proposal and how he can share some comments.

Slack conversations on #gtfs-flex

Felix announced that MOTIS now supports GTFS Flex!

💬 Join the GTFS Community

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Thank you for reading this edition of the GTFS Digest! We look forward to bringing you the latest GTFS updates in 2025 and beyond.