New parent stations for Commuter Rail, CapeFLYER, Dudley Square on 2019-05-30

[Developer at MBTA]

Dear developers,

On Thursday, May 30, 2019, we will be adding a number of new parent station stops to the MBTA’s GTFS feed and V3 API.

These new parent stops will cover every Commuter Rail and CapeFLYER station not currently enclosed within a parent station in our data, as well as the Dudley Square bus station. No changes will occur to the stop IDs at which service is scheduled. All facilities (such as car and bike parking facilities) that currently reference the existing, non-parented Commuter Rail stops (as well as Dudley) will now directly reference the new parent station.

In addition, please note that at Salem, Lynn, Needham Junction, Holbrook/Randolph, and Montello only, the new parent stops will also add an existing bus stop as a child, as those bus stops are located within Station busways or parking lots.

Salem is presented as an example:

• A new stop with the stop_id "place-ER-0168" will be created with the location_type "1" to denote a parent station.
• Both the existing Commuter Rail stop_id "Salem" and the existing bus stop_id "37150" will have their parent_station field populated with "place-ER-0168".
• The facilities with facility_ids "highlevel-ER-0168", "bike-ER-0168", and "ev-ER-0168-garage" will have the stop_id value changed from "Salem" to "place-ER-0168". In the case of "highlevel-ER-0168", a property will be added to the facilities with the property_id "excludes-stop" for the busway.

In total, this change will add 136 new stops to our data, all classified as parent stations. Sample files incorporating the changes can be found at the following links: stops.txt, facilities.txt, and facilities_properties.txt.

As always, do not hesitate to let us know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about these upcoming changes to the MBTA’s GTFS and API.

Sincerely,

developer@MBTA