Creating routes without stops. Please help.

[Shako Babilua]

Hello. I present the company "Tbilisi Minibus" that operates in Tbilisi, Georgia. We are willing to add our company profile and routes in Google Maps. We are new to this service but I received basic information from Google Transit Tutorial.

Our company offers individual service and it is different than ordinary public transportation service. We got fixed routes as buses or overground/underground transport has but we do not have stops (like bus stops). The minibuses that operate on fixed routes only stop on demand. I.E. if passenger sees the minibus that he or she is willing to ride, they just wave hand and the minibus stops to pick up the passenger. If the riding passengers wants to stop the minibus, they just ask the driver to stop minibus on desired place and driver just stops the transport. 

What I want to say, is that our service has fixed routes, that operate daily, fixed starting and ending points, but there are no fixed stops. Is there any way to upload this kind of information in Google Transit? Please advice how can I upload this specific information on Google Transit? How can I make it work?

Thank everybody in advance for the information.

[JP]

Shako,
What you describe is known as hail-and-ride. I do not have hands-on experience formalizing hail-and-ride into Google's input format (GTFS), but let me  recommend a Google Group called Transit Developers where people hang out who have done this kind of work, and who might be able to help you with some tips.
JP

[tay...@itpworld.net]

Hi Shako

I am currently working on a project on behalf of the World Bank to create a public transport database and open GTFS feed for Metro Manila in the Philippines.  In Metro Manila Jeepneys and buses work in a similar way, with largely fixed routes but few formal stopping points.  As such, these services operate in the 'demand responsive' or 'hail and ride' manner that you described for Tbilisi, Georgia.  The way we are approaching this GTFS challenge is to identify commonly used stopping points (malls, schools, business districts) along each route and define these as stops.  We are then nominally filling any large gaps along the route with stops placed at roughly every 200m (which is the average calling distance for Jeepneys in Metro Manila).  Although this is not perfect, it should be sufficient for trip planning, whereby people looking for a particular bus are directed to points along the route.  In order to get around the lack of timetables we are going to calculate these through a combination of average run-time data (time taken to travel from one end of the route to the other) and average numbers of Jeepney/bus vehicles operating along each route at specified times of day (morning peak, inter-peak, evening peak, evenings, weekends).

We are at an early stage of this project, which will involve the development of a basic open source GTFS-creator software tool and accompanying data entry spreadsheet.  We will pilot these tools with colleagues at the Philippines Department of Transport and Communications in the Philippines, but envisage final release versions will be made publicly available in Quarter 3 of this year by our clients at the World Bank.  If you can wait until then, then we will hopefully be able to provide you with a full suite of tools and instructions that will enable you to create GTFS for all of your minibus routes.

Hope that helps - feel free to get in touch with me at tay...@itpworld.net if you need further information about our project.

Best regards

Neil Taylor

[Shako Babilua]

Hello. Thank you all for the information. I thought the same way, to mark the stops every 100-200 meters. Our company will start creating route files for Google Transit, but with the large amount of information to upload, I think it will take about a year to finish the project :) 

Thanks Taylor for comprehensive and detailed information. You helped me a lot.

[GoogleTransit]

Hello y’all,

 

I am currently working out the details to promote our rural transportation service around Charleston SC for Google Transit.  Our service here contains routes that run as long as 145 miles, and it is a hail a ride system.  Would it be necessary in your opinions to create these faux stop locations every 200 meters as this would require up to 1160 stops?  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Sincerely,

Charles Drayton

 

Charles Drayton

 

Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments

1362 McMillan Avenue

North Charleston, SC 29405

(843) 529-0400 (ext. 217)

google...@bcdcog.com

char...@bcdcog.com

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[tay...@itpworld.net]

Hi Charles

Wow, that is some route!  My recommendation would be to go with every 400 meters in heavily urbanised areas or population centres along the route (since 200m is specific to the Philippines and based on the average stopping distance of Jeepneys), and at much sparser intervals (e.g. every mile or two) where you are in very rural areas.

I hope that helps 

Best regards

Neil 

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