"Real" Transit Lines

RicardoBento · ‎02-13-2019

Hi,
I would like to represent the results from "Count Trips on Lines" in the "real" Transit Lines based on shapes.txt from GTFS, instead of the straight-line connectors between stops (Transit lines). The idea is to obtain a "number of trips per transit axe" on a specific time window or day.
Is there any way to do this, for instance using the features generated with "GTFS Shapes To Features"?

Thanks and best wishes,

Ricardo Bento

PS: This is my first post in the community. Please tell me if it should be posted in another group.Thanks!

MelindaMorang · ‎02-14-2019

Hello Ricardo. A lot of people have asked for this, but I haven't been able to think of an easy way to do this. The GTFS shapes.txt file doesn't have a very strong relationship with the GTFS files that represent the schedules or with the stops.txt file for that matter. The challenge lies in clipping apart the line features created from shapes.txt and matching them to the correct line stop-to-stop line segments. Maybe if you have the feature class of shapes created from GTFS Shapes To Features and also the line output from BetterBusBuffers, you could use some of the Conflation Tools or editing tools to try to match the BetterBusBuffers line shapes to the GTFS shapes. But...this doesn't seem easy.

I'm sorry I don't have a simple solution for you. However, if you come up with something, please post your solution here so others can benefit from it!

(Here is my GitHub issue to add this functionality to BetterBusBuffers at some point. Note that it has 12 up-votes: Enhance Count Trips on Lines to use actual shapes · Issue #93 · Esri/public-transit-tools · GitHub )

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MelindaMorang · ‎02-14-2019

Hello Ricardo. A lot of people have asked for this, but I haven't been able to think of an easy way to do this. The GTFS shapes.txt file doesn't have a very strong relationship with the GTFS files that represent the schedules or with the stops.txt file for that matter. The challenge lies in clipping apart the line features created from shapes.txt and matching them to the correct line stop-to-stop line segments. Maybe if you have the feature class of shapes created from GTFS Shapes To Features and also the line output from BetterBusBuffers, you could use some of the Conflation Tools or editing tools to try to match the BetterBusBuffers line shapes to the GTFS shapes. But...this doesn't seem easy.

I'm sorry I don't have a simple solution for you. However, if you come up with something, please post your solution here so others can benefit from it!

(Here is my GitHub issue to add this functionality to BetterBusBuffers at some point. Note that it has 12 up-votes: Enhance Count Trips on Lines to use actual shapes · Issue #93 · Esri/public-transit-tools · GitHub )

RicardoBento · ‎02-14-2019

Hello Melinda,

Thank you for your feedback.

It is a challenging task, indeed, and I don’t think the Conflation Tools are a viable option. I will keep searching for a solution and will post it if I come up with something.

Meanwhile I found this on github that seems somewhat related with what i need and I will look into it : https://github.com/VolpeUSDOT/gtfs-measures, specially the “GTFS to Road Network (ARNOLD) Snapping<https://github.com/VolpeUSDOT/gtfs-measures/blob/master/docs/GTFS_Script_Documentation.md>”.

Ricardo Bento