Foxboro (Special Event) service in GTFS

[Developer at MBTA]

Dear Developer,

We are pleased to announce a timeline for implementing Gillette Stadium service into the static GTFS feed. This will allow consumers to receive alerts specific to these special event services as well as to track the real-time status of trains heading toward Foxboro.

This will be an important change for developers to note as we will be adding a new Commuter Rail route to the dataset in routes.txt with a route_id of “CR-Foxboro”. This route will include Foxboro service originating both from South Station in Boston as well as from TF Green Airport in Warwick. Note that while the route will be new to routes.txt, it is not physically a new Commuter Rail line, and at this time is only used for a limited number of events, so you may want to present it differently than other Commuter Rail routes, depending on your application. To help in this, the route_desc field in routes.txt will be “Limited Service” instead of “Commuter Rail”.

Only trips toward Foxboro will be listed at this time; trips returning from Foxboro after games, concerts, or other events will not be supported at this time. We anticipate supporting schedules return trips in the future. While GTFS will be updated as Foxboro service to events are announced and scheduled, GTFS consumers should not assume that the CR-Foxboro route will always contain trips. We can guarantee, however, that the route will always exist in routes.txt, even if no trips are linked to it.

The first event including this new GTFS route will be the Patriots game on Sunday, November 26. GTFS will begin to include the CR-Foxboro route and trips on Friday, November 17.

Attached at the following link is a sample of what the data will look like for just CR-Foxboro: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ddmXSNuIWXRWJ1M0JSVUhpSnM. As always, please let us know if you have have any questions.

Sincerely,

Developer@MBTA

[Developer at MBTA]

Dear Developers,

As a reminder, the Foxboro (special event) service is now in GTFS as of today (Fall 2017 version 15D) under the route_id "CR-Foxboro". The route is also available for use in the MBTA-realtime API.

Thank you,

Developer@MBTA