New GTFS transfer_type value from September 27, 2022

[Developer at MBTA]

Good afternoon developers,

We would like to announce an upcoming change to the transfers.txt file inside the MBTA's GTFS feed. Beginning Tuesday, September 27, 2022, the transfer_type field will begin including entries with the 4 value. This value, introduced into the main GTFS specification in late July, will be used to document pairs of trips on the same vehicle between which riders are permitted to remain aboard. One example where data users will see this value is between Silver Line SL1 trips terminating/originating at Logan Airport, which operate as a one-way loop.

Developers using GTFS should take care to ensure that their implementations support this new value by September 27. For more about the upcoming change, please see the pull request within our GTFS-documentation repository: https://github.com/mbta/gtfs-documentation/pull/31.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions, and thank you.

Josh
Developer @ MBTA