Introduction & Technical Description

GTFS-Realtime is a standard developed by Google that allows transit agencies to provide real-time information on different service.

The service is an extension to GTFS Static and enriches the static transit information with real-time information. The GTFS real-time data is aligned with the GTFS static data. The realtime feed includes all known changes in Swiss public transport in the entire preview window (three hours) for all transit agencies that provide realtime data.

GTFS RT allows the enrichment of the static transit information with three different types of additional information. These three enrichments are usually provided individually via HTTP and updated regularly, so developers can choose with which real-time data they want to enrich their applications.

Vehicle positions (currently not provided)
Trip updates (provided by SBB)
Service alerts (provided by SBB)

Vehicle positions

contain data about events that have already occurred (e.g. “The vehicle was at this location one minute ago”),

Ex: “This bus is at the Bern train station stop at 18h23”.

Here information about the location of individual transit vehicles can be published. Additionally, the current load of the vehicle, the vehicle type or other similar information can be provided.

The Vehicle Positions are not available on the platform.

A detailed list of the individual possible information units can be found at https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs-realtime/reference/.

Trip updates

Ex: “Bus 18 is currently 10 minutes late”.

Delays, changed routes, replacement vehicles or cancellations for individual lines are published here on an ongoing basis to enable passengers to plan as accurately as possible.

Service Alerts

Event information (Service Alerts) inform about foreseeable or unforeseeable events that affect a station, a line or the entire network (e.g. “Line 3 is closed until 15:00 due to a traffic accident”).

Ex: “Station Bern Weissenbühl is currently closed due to an accident”.

In case of shifting stops or generally unforeseen events affecting a stop, a route or the entire network, short messages can be published to keep passengers informed and explain what the reason for the change is.

Swiss Implementation

In Switzerland, two of the three services are currently implemented. Namely “Trip Update” and “Service Alerts”.

• The OpenDataPlatform currently supports only GTFS-RT “Trip Update” – version 1.0. Please note that 2.0 items are currently ignored.
• The OpenDataPlatform currently supports GTFS-RT “Service Alerts” – version 2.0. Please note these differences in the service versions.
• You can make a maximum of two queries per minute on the interface with your key.
• The real-time feed includes all known changes in Swiss public transport in the entire preview window (three hours) for all transport companies providing real-time data.
• For GTFS-RT, there is an update rule for delays. For example, if a whole trip is delayed by 5 minutes, this is only shown for the first stop. For all subsequent stops, the delay must be updated during import.
• The update must be done for arrival and departure times. GTFS-RT provides new data only if something has changed. Only the departure forecast is taken into account by our system. If the departure forecast remains and only the arrival forecast changes, no GTFS-RT message is generated for this trip