Why publish my data in both NeTEx and GTFS?

With more and more National Access Points requiring to have multimodal mobility data in NeTEx, are you slightly annoyed (to say the least…)? Did it take you a long time to standardise everything using GTFS, and you do not understand why you are being asked to redo everything with NeTEx? If so, then read further!

First, let’s lay the groundwork

Before we dive into more technical discussions, here is what you need to know about NeTEx and GTFS.

📚NeTEx

NeTEx is a European norm:

• governed by CEN,
• that enables the exchange of all static information describing a public transportation service,
• based on the reference conceptual data model Transmodel, which serves as both a dictionary and a grammar to NeTEx,
• designed for passenger information, inter-system exchanges, and open data.

📗GTFS

GTFS is a standard:

• maintainted by MobilityData,
• that enables the exchange of static information describing a transit service,
• designed for passenger information and open data.

Why two standards?

Although they were created around the same time, they do not come from the same continent and do not share the same vision.

🇪🇺 / 🇺🇸 Born on opposite sides of the world

NeTEx and GTFS were born on two different continents with different approaches to modeling:

• 🇪🇺: I strive to build a consensus shared by all Member States and I must allow for the diversity of public transport to be represented,
• 🇺🇸: I start by keeping things simple and grow as needs arise and/or transit evolves.

Different visions

NeTEx and GTFS do not share the same vision of public transport:

• 🚌🚕🚲🛴🚎🚄 NeTEx (and Transmodel) covers all public transport (i.e., any advertised public transport service and available for use by the public, regardless of its mode of operation),
• 🚌🚕🚎🚄 GTFS covers public transport with conventional modes of operation (i.e., transit and flexible modes)

For more details on the modes of operation of public transport covered by Transmodel: © CEN, TC278, WG3, SG4 (CC-BY-SA)

Learn more on Transmodel

Who is it for?

NeTEx and GTFS were not designed for the same consumers of multimodal mobility data.

👩‍💻 NeTEx was designed for various consumers of multimodal mobility data. Therefore, it allows different exports of datasets depending on whether you:

• feed your own trip planner with richer information,
• provide data to other IT systems (e.g., offer management, ticketing, etc.),
• export the data required by national and European regulations as open data,
• perform advanced statistics on your public transport offer (and in particular the link with OpRa).

📍 GTFS is designed for the most widely used trip planners (e.g., Google Maps, Transit App, Citymapper, etc.). Therefore, it only includes data that is essential for:

• finding possible routes between two stops,
• knowing the average journey time,
• knowing the most common fares,
• taking into account the minimum information required for passenger information.

OK, but does that mean I have to change everything?

Yes and No!

If your software does not offer native exports of your data in both NeTEx and GTFS, we are here to help! 🤝

If you have tools that support both NeTEx and GTFS, you do not need to do anything. Just make sure that you generate two publications of your public transport offer. ⤵

How to publish my data in both NeTEx and GTFS