Other Resources¶
Community¶
Places to ask questions and find other community resources.
- MobilityData Slack chat - Chatroom that includes channels #gtfs, #gtfs-validators #mobility-database #gtfs-realtime #gtfs_best-practices #gtfs-pathways #gtfs-fares #gtfs-flex #trb-transit-data.
- Transit Developers mailing list
- OpenTripPlanner Community
- OneBusAway
Local and regional groups¶
- Transit Techies NYC - NYC-based in-person/online hybrid meetup. Speaker list includes many contributors to this repo.
- German Open Transport Meetup - Biweekly online meetup of the German-speaking open transport community.
- German Open Transport Data Quality Meetup - Bimonthly online meetup of the German-speaking open transport community dedicated to data quality.
Research and Commentary¶
Blog posts, and reports related to open transit data.
Blog posts¶
- When(ish) is my bus? Data and code - The data and code (R) behind Whenish is my bus? Data includes three days of historical vehicle positions and the survey results.
- "Legacy AVL system? It's okay, join the club." by Kurt Raschke - Discussion of options for transforming legacy AVL system data into the GTFS-realtime format.
- "GTFS Best Practices now available!" by Sean Barbeau - Discusses some of the challenges of an open data format like GTFS and the GTFS Best Practices that were launched in early 2017 to help address data quality.
- "What's new in GTFS-realtime v2.0" by Sean Barbeau - Discuss the shortfalls in GTFS-realtime v1.0 and the improvements in v2.0.
- "AVL, CAD, and Real-Time Passenger Info for Beginners" by Tony Laidig - Provides a general introduction to technology used to track vehicles.
- "Visualizing Better Transportation: Data & Tools" by Steve Pepple - A collection of transportation-related data and tools for the San Francisco Bay Area and other cities in North America, originally collected and discussed at a 2018 Transit Week Event at ARUP in San Francisco.
- "How to use GTFS data to track transit vehicles in realtime" by Tom Camp - Using GTFS and GTFS Realtime to provide continuous realtime updates.
Academic papers¶
- Tang et al. - "Ridership effects of real-time bus information system: A case study in the City of Chicago" - Experiment in Chicago, IL showed modest increase in ridership when riders had access to real-time info via text message or email.
- Kay et al. - "When(ish) is my bus? User-centered Visualizations of Uncertainty in Everyday, Mobile Predictive Systems" - Paper attempts to answr the question of "how do we communicate uncertainty in transit predictions?" Explains the problem, existing solutions and designs a better interface for letting users know when to arrive at the bus stop.
- Watkins et al. - "Where Is My Bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders" - Experiments in Seattl,e WA showed that riders perceived shorter bus wait times when they had access to real-time info via mobile apps.
- Brakewood et al. - “An experiment evaluating the impacts of real-time transit information on bus riders in Tampa, Florida” - Controlled experiment in Tampa, FL showed that riders with access to real-time info via mobile apps perceived nearly 2 minute reduction in wait times compared to riders without real-time info. Riders with real-time info also had decreases in anxiety and frustration and better reception of agency.
- Brakewood et al. - "The impact of real-time information on bus ridership in New York City" - Experiment in NYC showed that ridership increased on long routes when real-time info was made available to riders.
- Brakewood and Watkins - "A literature review of the passenger benefits of real-time transit information" (2018) - An overview of many different research studies looking at the benefits of real-time transit information.
- Gramacki et al. - "gtfs2vec - Learning GTFS Embeddings for comparing Public Transport Offer in Microregions" - Methology using Uber's H3 spatial index and machine learning to identify areas of "similar" public transit service quality in cities. Source code available on GitHub.
- Higgins et al. - "Calculating place-based transit accessibility: Methods, tools and algorithmic dependence" (2022) - Compares software tools for calculating accessibility by walking and public transit including ArcGIS Pro, Emme, R5R, and OpenTripPlanner.
- Aemmer et al. - "Measurement and classification of transit delays using GTFS-RT data" - Presents a method for extracting transit performance metrics from a General Transit Feed Specification’s Real-Time (GTFS-RT) component and aggregating them to roadway segments. Used with Transit Vis, viewable here.
Government reports¶
- APTA Policy Development and Research - Public Transportation Embracing Open Data - APTA's discussion of the benefits and challenges of open transit data (a short summary of the below TCRP report).
- TCRP Synthesis 115 - Open Data: Challenges and Opportunities for Transit Agencies (2015) - A comprehensive report looking at the benefits and challenges of open transit data.
- TCRP Research Report 213: Data Sharing Guidance for Public Transit Agencies – Now and in the Future (2020) - A report designed to help agencies make decisions about sharing their data, including how to evaluate benefits, costs, and risks.
- TCRP G-16 Development of Transactional Data Specifications for Demand-Responsive Transportation (In progress) - The objective of this research is to develop technical specifications for transactional data for entities involved in the provision of demand-responsive transportation. Expected completion date is late 2018.
Community-maintained lists¶
- Vendors Providing GTFS Creation/Maintenance services - Add new vendors here.
- Entities Providing Transportation Software Development Consulting Services - Add new entities here.