Frequently Asked Questions

Anyone planning a transit journey through their favorite trip planning application is almost certainly using GTFS data. Transit providers can publish this format to describe where their vehicles are supposed to go, when they’re supposed to get there, and where they actually are in real time, as well as other useful information like whether vehicles accept bicycles or what it will cost to board. Trip planning applications like Google Maps and the Transit App turn this information into a user-friendly experience for transit riders. But if there are unexpected issues with that data, the rider may get incorrect information or none at all.

To help detect issues with transit data, MobilityData, which maintains the GTFS standard, manages an open-source GTFS validator. This validator, used by Google Maps and other major trip planning services, represents a wide range of potential issues. Cal-ITP deployed its own instance of the validator for the benefit of all California transit providers. Each month, Cal-ITP will run the validator on every California transit provider’s GTFS feeds and compile results into a PDF report.

A complete archive of these reports is available in the directory. Transit providers and their vendors can also request that these monthly reports be automatically sent to them via email by contacting our GTFS Helpdesk at hello@calitp.org.

Each report contains three sections:

• A summary of the service operations represented in the most recent version of your published GTFS feed. This identifies operations that have been miscoded.

• A list of validation issues identified by the canonical GTFS Validator. Each error and warning references this set of validation rules.

• A check for files and fields that are recommended by the GTFS Best Practices and California Minimum GTFS Guidelines. If data is missing, ask your vendor if they have plans to include this data. If they don’t, contact the Cal-ITP Helpdesk (hello@calitp.org) for support.

These reports are intended to be shared with vendors and provide actionable guidance for them to improve the data they produce on riders’ behalves.

GTFS Schedule data currently can only represent fixed-route and fixed-schedule transit operations, so entirely on-demand services such as paratransit will not be listed on this dashboard. If you represent a California transit provider with fixed route and fixed schedule service with a GTFS feed that is missing from this list, please send the stable URL for your GTFS Schedule data to the Cal-ITP Helpdesk at hello@calitp.org. If you’re a California transit provider that wants GTFS data but doesn’t have it, or have related questions, you can contact the Helpdesk to take advantage of our available technical services.

If you do not see your feed on this site, it means that Cal-ITP does not have your feed on file. If you have a public GTFS feed, please send it to us at hello@calitp.org.

If the feed on the site is incorrect or outdated, please let us know. This means that the feed we have on file for this transit provider is incorrect. Once we have the correct feed, we will update our records and the next month’s Report will evaluate this new feed.

We are currently only able to display the types of codes the validator displays within the Reports themselves. The Reports site team is actively working on adding features that allow the user to access greater specifics about each validation notice.

In the meantime, Cal-ITP can provide you with a detailed spreadsheet of the full validator output, as well as an explanation of what the validator is flagging. You can request this information here.

Currently the Reports only display information for a subset of the California Transit Data Guidelines. The Reports team is actively working on incorporating more of the Guidelines into the site. If you would like an assessment of your feed in comparison to all of the Guidelines, please contact us at hello@calitp.org to request this.

Yes! The Cal-ITP team is happy to provide technical support through our Transit Data Helpdesk. Please contact us at hello@calitp.org.

Yes! Caltrans and Cal-ITP perform deeper evaluations of California GTFS feeds as a service under our Transit Data Helpdesk that compares your feed to all of the Guidelines, summarizes our findings, and offers technical support and recommendations. We proactively reach out to agencies around once per year, but we offer this service at any time. To request an assessment, please contact us at hello@calitp.org.

The Cal-ITP Transit Data Helpdesk is a service available to California transit providers where Cal-ITP staff and industry experts are available to help providers with free technical support. Some of what we help with include:

• Updating GTFS feeds to meet the Guidelines
• Making plans to obtain GTFS-Realtime data
• Troubleshooting validation notices
• Answering questions about anything transit data related!