Visualize Public Transit Data with GTFS-GO

Introduction

As part of its contribution to open source, MIERUNE publishes several QGIS plugins free of charge. This article introduces one of them, GTFS-GO, and shows how to use it and what it is good for.

This article is a revised version of the “QGIS Blog” content that was published on the MIERUNE Inc. website.

What is GTFS?

GTFS stands for General Transit Feed Specification. It is an international standard for storing all kinds of public transit information: timetables, stop locations, routes, fares, and more. Bus operators in particular are increasingly preparing and publishing GTFS as open data (see GTFS.JP). GTFS is made up of multiple CSV files. This makes it a highly machine-readable standard, but people cannot read it directly, so you need an application to check and use the data. This is why MIERUNE developed GTFS-GO.

GTFS-GO

GTFS holds stop locations and route information (that is, the order in which a route passes its stops), so you can plot them on a map by analyzing the data. GTFS also holds time-based information, so you can, for example, aggregate the traffic frequency as of October 1 of a given year. GTFS-GO is a plugin that runs these processes through a simple user interface. The sections below cover everything from installing the plugin to using each of its features.

Install the plugin

From the menu bar, open Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins.

Select All on the left and enter GTFS in the search field. The matching plugins appear in the list. Select GTFS-GO and click Install Plugin.

GTFS-GO is installed, and its icon appears in the toolbar.

The installation is complete.

Plot stops and routes

In GTFS-Datasource, select the GTFS data you want from the drop-down list, or specify a ZIP file you downloaded in advance.

Set the processing options you want, then click Extract on QGIS.

The processing result appears on the map.

Aggregate traffic frequency

Select the GTFS data you want, as in the steps above. Select aggregate route frequency and enter the aggregation conditions, such as the date to aggregate.

Click Extract on QGIS to display the processing result on the map.

For technical details such as the rules for unifying stops, see the Qiita article below.

Connect to the GTFS Data Repository

GTFS-GO is designed to process GTFS data that you download in advance. The latest version, however, can connect to the GTFS Data Repository, which the Association for Promotion of Infrastructure Geospatial Information Distribution (AIGID) is currently running on a trial basis. It lets you search for and download GTFS data.

To use it, start the plugin and select [Japan]GTFS data repository from the Repository drop-down list at the top of the dialog. Click Search to list the GTFS data uploaded to the repository.

Select the GTFS data you want (you can select more than one) and click Extract on QGIS as before. The processing result appears on the map.

Conclusion

Once GTFS data exists, an operator's service information appears in Google Maps, which gives operators a strong incentive to prepare it. GTFS-GO is developed in the hope of going one step further, so that GTFS as open data is widely used beyond Google Maps. MIERUNE hopes that many people will try it, including those involved in public transportation and urban planning, open data enthusiasts, and anyone interested in visualization, and that the potential uses of GTFS become widely known.

GTFS-GO is developed as open source and welcomes every kind of contribution, from patches to bug reports. You do not need to be a developer: if you find a bug or an improvement while using the plugin, you can report it in GitHub Issues, and it can be reflected in the development plans.