GTFS: Fares v2 files from April 12, 2023

[Developer at MBTA]

Dear developers,

We are excited to announce that beginning the afternoon of Wednesday, April 12, the MBTA's GTFS-static data will begin to include information about the system's fares, incorporating elements from the GTFS-Fares v2 specification.

This will include a new field appended to routes.txt, and the following new files added to GTFS:

• areas.txt
• fare_leg_rules.txt
• fare_media.txt
• fare_products.txt
• fare_transfer_rules.txt
• stop_areas.txt

At this time, the changes will only include full one-way, walk-up fares using cash, or CharlieTickets, or the mTicket application, depending on the mode and station of entry. Additional features, such as supporting reduced fares, promotional fares (such as the Commuter Rail Weekend Pass), stored value with CharlieCards, and unlimited passes, may be added in the future.

A sample GTFS file incorporating the change, useable for development and review purposes, can be found at this link. Further details of the changes can also be found in this pull request to our GTFS documentation.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions about this upcoming change.

Thank you,
Josh
Developer @ MBTA