proposal: add intercity bus and airplane route_types (was Re: proposal: add synonyms for route_type values)
Joe Hughes
>
> Can we take the opportunity when extending/redefining route_type to
> separate out local bus (transit) from intercity type bus (Greyhound
> etc). This will become more important with large regional data sets as
> the two types of bus provide different levels of service and intercity
> provides the opportunity/need to prebook the trip. Should air be
> included as a route_type, if only for future proofing.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the proposal! I've moved it out into its own thread, since
I think it's aimed at solving different problems than the synonyms
proposal.
To help inform this discussion, would you like to point out some
existing transit applications that make good use of the
local/intercity bus route type distinction? Is there a particular
data set or application whose use of the GTFS would benefit from this
feature?
I know that you've been working on transit representation problems for
a long time now, so I'm curious if you think that intercity bus would
be sufficient, or whether from past experience you've found that
further distinctions in bus service types proved useful to the user.
I can see it both ways; on the one hand, "intercity" coaches are often
a different type of vehicle with luggage storage underneath and
different payment expectations. On the other hand, there's also
plenty of transit service that uses this type of coach, going a
significant distance between cities, and yet has on-board fare payment
(you see this a lot in airport service), so adding another this type
could add uncertainty about which type to use in those cases.
Is it possible that the distinction is more accurately made in the
fare rules? There's already a "Fare must be paid before boarding"
type, perhaps this need could also be addressed by having a way to
specify that travel must be booked in advance and/or that seating is
limited?
As for an airplane type, this seems like it might be a speculative
feature. We actually had that in an earlier (unpublished) draft of
the spec, but decided against it since representing air travel would
likely require other changes that we would be better equipped to
identify when we had a concrete use for it.
Are there others here interested in using an "intercity bus" route_type?
Thanks, and welcome to the group,
Joe Hughes
Google Transit
miken
route_type to generate the vehicle type icons as part of the output.
Until the user is given the possibility of selecting route types to
more closely control their journey selection there is no need for
distinguish between the different types of 'Bus'. If user route type
selection is planned for the future then the characteristics of
different types of 'Bus' become important.
The data set I am working on has three types of 'Bus':-
Bus - which is the regular transit bus which follows a regular route
with frequent stops and no pre-booking.
Coach - which I previously described as Intercity, usually longer
distance with less frequent stops and pre-booking possible. The fare
structure generally mitigates against using coach for short journey
legs.
Commuter Coach - which is like coach, but pre-booking is essential
with a commitment to use the service every day. Turn up and travel is
not possible with this service.
These three type of 'Bus' each provide a different level of service to
the user. There is no point in offering commuter coach as part of a
one-off journey or coach for a short leg within a city.
There is no fare information available wthin the data set I am working
on and therefore I cannot use any of the fare_attributes to make the
distinction between the different types of 'bus'
Now that Google Transit has expanded to include multi-agency data sets
the need for user route type selection will increase and therefore
'Bus' needs to be broken into sub-types so the journey planner can
more closely match the user requirements.
On May 24, 5:48 pm, "Joe Hughes" <joe.hughes.c...@gmail.com> wrote: