Question: Mininum time buffer needed for train-bus transfers?

[rgsa...@g.ucla.edu]

Hello,

I am new to this and I'm not a transit app developer. At the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) in California, we have OCTA-operated Stationlink buses dedicated to pick up passengers arriving on Metrolink-operated passenger trains. The Stationlink buses are scheduled to depart the train stations at the same time the trains arrive at the train stations, but the Stationlink bus drivers will wait for the train passengers even if the train is late. Currently, Google Maps is not showing the option to take the Stationlink buses scheduled to depart at the same time as the trains arrive. Instead, Google Maps is telling passengers to wait for the next Stationlink bus. Is there a way to make Google Maps tell the passenger that no matter when the train actually arrives, the Stationlink bus will wait for the train it is dedicated to serve? Alternatively, if our only option is to schedule the Stationlink buses to depart the station minutes after the trains arrive at the station, then what is the minimum transfer buffer time needed so Google Maps will tell the passengers that they can make the train-to-bus transfer, even if the train and bus lat/lons are different? In one forum thread, someone mentioned 4 minutes was the minimum buffer time needed. Could anyone confirm this? If so, could anyone confirm that the 4 minute buffer will work every time, even if the train arrival location has a different lat/lon than the bus departure location (the transfer is within the same train station, but not at the same lat/lon).

Example:

Thank you,

Rosa

[Charles_Belov_SFMTA]

transfers.txt is intended to handle the situation.

BART uses this file. You might check their GTFS page and download their file.

Hope this helps.

[Devin Braun]

Unfortunately, unless the trains are in your GTFS feed our your buses are in their GTFS feed, transfers.txt won't work. 

We have the same problem specifying guaranteed transfers from a regional train to train shuttle services that we run and depart when the train comes in. 

There has been talk of an international registry of stops to handle this type of issue but it never got anywhere. 

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[Joel Haasnoot]

One problem is that if your bus departs at 5:53 and the train arrives at 5:53 Google thinks it's a 2 minute walk between the two. At minimum, the bus would have to depart at 5:55. 

Have you tried moving your stop closer and/or to the same coordinates as the train platform? Are the stop coordinates correct / do they match the boarding location of the bus? To get this right, you may have to add a parent stop and a child stop that matches this specific bus if there are multiple bays.

HTH,

Joel Haasnoot

[Charles_Belov_SFMTA]

Please do not kludge the data to try to make it work. If the coordinates don't agree with the actual location, they will show up at the wrong place on the map.

Charles Belov
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Webmaster

https://www.sfmta.com

On Saturday, August 25, 2018 at 1:30:04 AM UTC-7, Joel Haasnoot wrote:

One problem is that if your bus departs at 5:53 and the train arrives at 5:53 Google thinks it's a 2 minute walk between the two. At minimum, the bus would have to depart at 5:55. 

Have you tried moving your stop closer and/or to the same coordinates as the train platform? Are the stop coordinates correct / do they match the boarding location of the bus? To get this right, you may have to add a parent stop and a child stop that matches this specific bus if there are multiple bays.

HTH,

Joel Haasnoot

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 10:12 PM Devin Braun <Devin...@sdmts.com> wrote:

Unfortunately, unless the trains are in your GTFS feed our your buses are in their GTFS feed, transfers.txt won't work. 

We have the same problem specifying guaranteed transfers from a regional train to train shuttle services that we run and depart when the train comes in. 

There has been talk of an international registry of stops to handle this type of issue but it never got anywhere. 

On Aug 24, 2018 15:34, Charles_Belov_SFMTA <charle...@gmail.com> wrote:

transfers.txt is intended to handle the situation.

BART uses this file. You might check their GTFS page and download their file.

Hope this helps.

On Thursday, August 23, 2018 at 8:08:35 AM UTC-7, ROSA GUILLEN SANCHEZ wrote:

Hello,

I am new to this and I'm not a transit app developer. At the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) in California, we have OCTA-operated Stationlink buses dedicated to pick up passengers arriving on Metrolink-operated passenger trains. The Stationlink buses are scheduled to depart the train stations at the same time the trains arrive at the train stations, but the Stationlink bus drivers will wait for the train passengers even if the train is late. Currently, Google Maps is not showing the option to take the Stationlink buses scheduled to depart at the same time as the trains arrive. Instead, Google Maps is telling passengers to wait for the next Stationlink bus. Is there a way to make Google Maps tell the passenger that no matter when the train actually arrives, the Stationlink bus will wait for the train it is dedicated to serve? Alternatively, if our only option is to schedule the Stationlink buses to depart the station minutes after the trains arrive at the station, then what is the minimum transfer buffer time needed so Google Maps will tell the passengers that they can make the train-to-bus transfer, even if the train and bus lat/lons are different? In one forum thread, someone mentioned 4 minutes was the minimum buffer time needed. Could anyone confirm this? If so, could anyone confirm that the 4 minute buffer will work every time, even if the train arrival location has a different lat/lon than the bus departure location (the transfer is within the same train station, but not at the same lat/lon).

Example:

Thank you,

Rosa

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[Joel Haasnoot]

Totally, I often see transit authorities modeling large stations without parent and child stops and a two minute walk between services departing the same minute is general symptom of this. 

Joel Haasnoot

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[rgsa...@g.ucla.edu]

Hi Devin,

Yes, that is the issue we face; the buses and the trains are in separate GTFS.

Has your agency tried scheduling your shuttles a few minutes after the trains are scheduled to arrive? That is what we are considering to do.

Rosa

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