Locations and availability of shared mobility services (GBFS)

Brief Description

This data feed shows the locations and availability of shared mobility services (cars, bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, cargo bikes) in real time.

Functional Description

Shared mobility refers to the joint, shared use of means of transport, such as cars, taxis, bicycles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, scooters, etc. These are no longer understood as individual assets, but as shared assets that can be accessed as required. In this way, mobility is becoming a service (Mobility as a Service, MaaS).

Shared mobility enables needs-based, inexpensive, resource-efficient and energy-efficient mobility. In Switzerland, various providers provide a wide range of shared mobility services. Vehicles can be booked and used quickly and easily via providers’ apps or booking platforms. Skilfully combining different modes of transport creates solutions for the entire mobility chain, resulting in digitalised and sustainable mobility.

Technical Description

The data is available in the GBFS format. GBFS defines ‘feeds’ (JSON files) which can be obtained from REST services (HTTP endpoints).

Further information on obtaining data and the connected shared mobility providers can be found at: https://www.sharedmobility.ch/info

Two interfaces are offered: GBFS version 2.1 and GBFS version 2.3. The main difference is that version 2.1 still includes all providers in a single GBFS feed in the Swiss Feed, whereas in 2.3 there is a separate feed for each provider (which is standard-compliant). GBFS 2.3 can include the following information compared to 2.1 (depending on the provider, the relevant information is supplied or not):

• New fields in vehicle_types.json:
  • form_factor: cargo_bicycle (for cargo bikes)
  • vehicle_image
  • make (brand)
  • model
  • wheel_count (number of wheels)
  • default_reserve_time (max. no. of minutes reservation before start of rental)
  • return_constraint (restriction to where the vehicle can be returned)
  • pricing_plan_ids (link to price information in system_pricing_plans)
• New field in free_bike_status.json (designation from version 3.0 onwards, in which Swiss data is not yet available: vehicle_status.json)
  • current_fuel_percent (battery charge; note: value between 0 and 1)
• The new fields in the files system_information.json, station_information.json and geofencing_zones.json are not used in the Swiss feed.

Price information would be possible according to the GBFS standard, but is not included in both versions of the Swiss data.

The following fields are used to use sharing data in the Open Journey Planner (OJP):

• free_bike_status
  • bike_id
  • lat, lon
  • rental_uris.android
  • rental_uris.ios
• station_information
  • station_id
  • name
  • lat, lon
  • rental_uris.android
  • rental_uris.ios
• station_status
  • num_bikes_available
  • num_cars_available
• system_information
  • name
• vehicle_types
  • form_factor

More detailed information in English about the new features of version 2.3 can be found on the website of the MobilityData standardisation body. However, not all new fields are required in the Swiss feed. https://mobilitydata.org/gbfs-v2-3-rc-is-here-to-fix-some-of-your-problems/

A technically oriented documentation of the changes in the various versions – also provided by MobilityData – is available on Github: https://github.com/MobilityData/gbfs/blob/v3.0/gbfs.md

The data quality of some fields is unreliable:

In the case of ‘current_range_meters,’ for example, unrealistically high values of 999999.0 (corresponds to almost 1000 kilometres) sometimes occur.

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