GTFS

Introduction#

The General Transit Feed Specification defines a common format for public transportation schedules and associated geographic information. The tools described here facilitate the import of schedules (and also routes to a limited degree) into SUMO. They require the installation of the pandas library. For best performance it is recommended to use at least pandas 2.0.

See also the GTFS tutorial.

gtfs2pt.py#

This tool is the main script to import public transport from GTFS. Depending on the input files available, you can import the routes by:

  • searching for the fastest path between stops. This option only needs as input the sumo network and the GTFS files: routes.txt, stops.txt, stop_times.txt, trips.txt, calendar.txt and calendar_dates.txt.
  • importing the route paths from OSM. For this you also need the GTFS file shapes.txt and the public transport line definitions from OSM (see ptLines output).

The minimal call is:

python tools/import/gtfs/gtfs2pt.py --network <net-file> --gtfs <gtfs-data-file> --date <YYYYMMDD>

or for the option with OSM routes:

python tools/import/gtfs/gtfs2pt.py --network <net-file> --gtfs <gtfs-data-file> --date <YYYYMMDD> --osm-routes <ptlines-file>

In both cases you can use the --modes option that allows to select which public transport modes should be imported (bus, tram, train, subway and/or ferry). As default all modes are imported.

As output an additional file (.add.xml) containing the stops and a route file (.rou.xml) containing the vehicle definitions are created. If the option --osm-routes was not given, the additional file also contains the static routes. In order to obtain vehicle definitions sorted by departure time, the option --sort has to be provided.

If the option --osm-routes was used, an extra file "gtfs_missing.xml" that contains the elements (stops and ptLines) of GTFS that could not be imported is generated. The given routes from OSM may have connectivity problems, which can be repaired with the --repair option. When this option is enabled and by the repair some warnings and errors occurs, these are written in a new output file "invalid_osm_routes.txt".

gtfs2fcd.py#

This is a helper script which converts the stop sequences found in GTFS data into SUMO's FCD format and optionally also in GPS tracks for further processing. It is used by the script gtfs2pt.py.

The minimal call is:

python tools/import/gtfs/gtfs2fcd.py --gtfs <gtfs-data-file> --date <YYYYMMDD>

gtfs2osm.py#

This helper script contains the necessary functions to import public transport from GTFS and OSM. It is used by the script gtfs2pt.py when the --osm-routes option is given.