Easy to configure additional transport characteristics

[novalis]

Possibility to add additional characteristics to every bus/train (additional to whether or not they are wheelchair accessible). E.g. sleeping bunks on coaches, wifi on board, etc.

Gui should permit to:

• filter routing connections according to selected characteristics (buses with sleeping bunks only...)
• display this additional information in the listings of all lines (icon for a wheelchair accessible unit, icon for a unit with wifi on board....)

[novalis]

Hi Karel,

This would be very cool to have!

We currently import transit data in the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), which doesn't yet support this kind of information. GTFS is an open standard, however, and there's a mailing list to propose changes on (http://groups.google.com/group/gtfs-changes). Changes to the spec are typically adopted if there's real-world data available and an application that's actually making use of it.

Do you know if any agencies that provide this type of information (e.g., which buses have bunks or wifi)? If so, what format do they provide it in?

Also, your idea is very much in line with something else we'd like to support: For multi-modal trips involving a bike, you only want to route people on buses/trains that have bike racks or even allow bikes at all.

--nicholasbs

[novalis]

Hi Nick,

Thanks. I knew this was not included in GTFS, so my doubt was whether you have considered a possibility that OTP would draw data from additional file/dbase that would not be GTFS standard (whether it would be made part of the GTFS package of files or not). I don't have much idea how that could be best done technically, though :).

Good idea to propose as a change to gtfs standard, although it might be a long-time run, I imagine. I will try.

As for real life examples... In southern cone of South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Brasil...) 'sofa coaches' are common on inter-city lines - some of the buses are equipped with a special sofa-type seats for long distant travel (not bunks as I wrongly wrote before). Wifi is available on some inter-city bus lines in Uruguay and recently it started to be introduced also to some of the city bus lines in Montevideo.

I don't yet know in what format the information about these extra services is available besides specific companies' booking systems or printed schedules. Will try to find out more and update you.

Replying to [comment:1 nicholasbs]:

Hi Karel,

This would be very cool to have!

We currently import transit data in the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), which doesn't yet support this kind of information. GTFS is an open standard, however, and there's a mailing list to propose changes on (http://groups.google.com/group/gtfs-changes). Changes to the spec are typically adopted if there's real-world data available and an application that's actually making use of it.

Do you know if any agencies that provide this type of information (e.g., which buses have bunks or wifi)? If so, what format do they provide it in?

Also, your idea is very much in line with something else we'd like to support: For multi-modal trips involving a bike, you only want to route people on buses/trains that have bike racks or even allow bikes at all.

--karel

[novalis]

From the perspective of usability, I think it would be an error to require all such variations to be first part of gtfs specs. There are many possible variations that are important locally but are not likely to make it easily to gtfs. For example women-only metro/train coaches in Mexico City and part of muslim world, availability of coaches where smoking is permitted, trains allowing passenger AND car transport...

Couldn't there be a way of allowing the one who generates the feed to add additional values to trips.txt file? And for admin to define in OTP configuration what these values represent and allow to add easily checkboxes into the gui which would represent filters for given values (as there is now for wheelchair access)? These characteristics should then be also visible when one looks at detailed info about particular train/bus line, and also stop's timetables.

The idea is not to overload the interface with options and information, but the admin should be able to determine which transportation characteristics are important locally.

Nice extra would be a possibility to define icons for these additional variants (icon for wheelchair access, wifi.....) that would simplify adding them to line info and timetables

See attached images if it is not clear what I mean :)

--karel

[novalis]

I like this idea. As I see it, it would require:

1. Updates to the GTFS graph builder to allow people to specify additional fields/data in their feeds, and how their values should effect routing. This would almost certainly require updates to the onebusaway-gtfs library.
2. Hooks in the routing engine to actually route differently depending on the presence of this data.
3. New configuration options for the webapp (see #203) that allow specifying what the user-facing options are and what type of elements (checkbox, popup menu, etc) should be used.

If we only care about making this mandatory, e.g., an "Only give routes with wifi" checkbox, than specifying additional options might be a little easier.

--nicholasbs

[novalis]

Replying to [comment:4 nicholasbs]:

I like this idea. As I see it, it would require:

1. Updates to the GTFS graph builder to allow people to specify additional fields/data in their feeds, and how their values should effect routing. This would almost certainly require updates to the onebusaway-gtfs library.
2. Hooks in the routing engine to actually route differently depending on the presence of this data.
3. New configuration options for the webapp (see #203) that allow specifying what the user-facing options are and what type of elements (checkbox, popup menu, etc) should be used.

If we only care about making this mandatory, e.g., an "Only give routes with wifi" checkbox, than specifying additional options might be a little easier.

I agree that checkbox would make most sense. The webapp should be configurable to none, one, or multiple checkboxes/filters.

--karel

[novalis]

{{{

!html

}}} This ticket has been referenced in ticket #431:

...few times prior, and surprised we hadn't ticketed it yet. See a related ticket #177...

Requirement:

Would be good to allow the customer to have an advance...

--fpurcell

[abyrd]

This will be dependent on changes to GTFS that haven't happened yet. Closing.