Using the GTFS format to improve public transport data accessibility in Gauteng

Abstract

Public transport plays an important role in cities. It is a less expensive option than private transport and could reduce congestion and improve accessibility to jobs. However, ridership could be hampered when information regarding an operator’s routes, schedules and fares is not readily available. Furthermore, public transport operators seem to maintain their data in different formats and not all data are updated frequently. From a planning perspective, this makes it difficult to determine the state of public transport at a provincial level. Converting public transport data into a standard format, such as the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) format, can be beneficial to operators as well as provincial officials, since it can be integrated in journey planning applications such as Google Maps. This increases accessibility of public transport information and can possibly increase ridership. In this paper we discuss the benefits of converting data into the GTFS format, benchmark the data of three public transport operators in Gauteng, and discuss the role that Industrial Engineers can play in using the data in the GTFS format to, for instance, optimise public transport networks.