Visualizing public transit system operation with GTFS data: A case study of Calgary, Canada

Abstract

Public transportation agencies are one of the industries that generate a large volume of data on a high frequency and velocity basis. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is one of the datasets these agencies generate and share openly with the public. GTFS feeds contain data for scheduled transit service including stop and route locations, and schedules information. This paper aims to demonstrate the potential of GTFS data, specifically, the paper describes the development of a GTFS data visualization tool that displays spatial and temporal patterns of transit services from which qualitative information and insights can be gained. In this paper, GTFS data from Calgary Transit was used as a case study. Previous studies focused on the development of visualization tools that display transit movement, or static graphical representation of transit operation. However, there is still a need for a dynamic interactive visualization tool that can also measures and displays transit system operation geographically and statistically. This study builds on the previous investigations and further develops a new public transit system operation visualization tool (called PubtraVis) with six visualization modules that reflect on different transit system operational characteristics; mobility, speed, flow, density, headway, and analysis. The user can evaluate two modules side by side for comparative analysis. The analysis module provides an insightful statistical summary and similarity measure and clustering results based on the transit operation characteristics. PubtraVis was tested with real-world users through a user experience study from which it was found to be useful and easy to start using. PubtraVis can be a useful tool to demonstrate the dynamism of transit vehicles from the entire transit network at a glance, and can be used to facilitate communication between transit operators, city authorities, and the general public regarding the public transit planning and operation.

Multicriterial analysis of the accessibility of public transport stops in Cracow

“…GTFS data were used for estimating accessibility of supermarkets (Farber et al, 2014), measuring the impacts of new public transit services on space-time accessibility (Lee, Miller, 2018), (Tao et al, 2014) or analysing public transport network (Kaeoruean et al, 2020), (Wong, 2013). It can be used for visualisations as well (Prommaharaj et al, 2020). As examples of GTFS data usage in articles within Poland we can name a study of (Goliszek, Połom, 2016) dealing with the identification of deviations in the morning peaks of public transport and a study from (Goliszek, 2017) that examines the accessibility of services by public transport.…”

Human mobility data and analysis for urban resilience: A systematic review

“…One of the challenges in handling probe car data is developing a standard data format that can be used by each company. To address this challenge, a new data format developed by Google, called general transit feed specification, has been applied extensively to public transportation location data (Prommaharaj et al, 2020).…”

A geospatial workflow for the assessment of public transit system performance using near real‐time data

“…Kunama, Worapan, Phithakkitnukoon, and Demissie (2017) developed a desktop tool that preprocesses GTFS data and visualizes animations of it on a transit network map, including the number of public transport vehicles per hour and the selection of routes, trips, and stations. Similarly, Prommaharaj, Phithakkitnukoon, Demissie, Kattan, and Ratti (2020) created a dynamic PT operation visualization tool to display mobility, speed, flow, density, headway, and analysis using static GTFS files provided by Calgary Transit.…”