Changes in NeTEx and GTFS for DRT

In the past years, public transport services gained in flexibility with the growth of Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) services. To make sure these changes are visible to travellers, the first step is to make sure that they can be described using the standardised data formats. Both NeTEx and GTFS got recent improvements to ensure exactly that!

NeTEx - Showcasing different business models

Since NeTEx v2.0, there is a distinction made between:

• Booking conditions for a public transport offer, named BookingArrangement;
• Booking conditions for a local service that relates to a public transport offer (e.g., assitance service), named ServiceBookingArrangement.

Both can have multiple instances for the same offer or service to represent the variations in booking conditions (e.g., type of day, season, etc.). Following that change, an additional relation was created to allow different booking rules on the same line but at different period of times (e.g., service after 22:00); a BOOKING ARRANGEMENT is now linked to a SERVICE JOURNEY PATTERN.

Also, since NeTEx v2.0, there is the possibility to directly describe some flexibility pattern on a public transport line that is mostly scheduled. For this, there is the strong incentive to use the concept of LINE for all public transport services with the future deprecation of FLEXIBLE LINE. Inasmuch, Public Transport Authorities have an easier time operating mixed services while not burdening their passenger information systems.

For more details, refer to the NeTEx changelog.

GTFS Flex - A new version

Changes to GTFS include, but are not limited to:

• Extensions to define the time that demand responsive transportation service becomes available/ends in a GeoJSON location, location group, or stop.
• Addition of booking rules to provide riders information about how to request service, and their reference in the description of the offer.
• Addition of zones definition and grouping of stops to represent where riders can request either pickup or drop off

For more details, refer to the GTFS documentation.

All of these changes were integrated in Chouette SaaS to support PTAs in structuring their passenger information for DRT services. Read more ➡️ How to structure DRT data?