G

General Transit Feed Specification

History of GTFS

GTFS was jointly pioneered by TriMet in Portland, Oregon and Google. It served as the bedrock for agencies across the United States to host their service information online, and directly led to the development of real-time public transport information on the internet. Third-party developers have since been empowered to develop trip planning apps to improve the rider experience on public transport.

For more, see the Official GTFS Documentation

Definition

abbrev. “GTFS”

A standardised format for public transport schedule and geographic data. GTFS data is developed by public transport agencies, and can be in static or real-time formats.

Grade Separation

Definition

An engineering and planning tactic to separate multiple modes of transportation onto different heights, enabling exclusive Right-of-Way for each.

Grade separated rights-of-way have significant implications for On-Time Performance of public transport systems, as it mitigates the impact of traffic conditions and variability from each trip.

Examples

• At-Grade: at the same level as surface right-of-way

• Below-Grade: i.e. underground tunnels, subways

• Above-Grade: i.e. aerial tram, elevated bridge, monorail systems