Dear Developers,
In order to streamline our internal data pipeline and enable improvements to rider-facing information, we will begin publishing non-revenue service in our data streams on Thursday, December 7.
This message a preliminary alert to help facilitate a smooth transition. Early adjustments to your implementations (if needed) are recommended to accommodate this update — and if you have any questions, we encourage you to reach out ahead of the change.
Note: At this time, non-revenue trips on light rail already appear in the feeds as revenue trips. We are currently working to identify and flag non-revenue service on light rail.
Here is what non-revenue service will look like in our data feeds:
GTFS-RealtimeNon-revenue trips will only be published to our GTFS-Realtime enhanced JSON feeds. You can view our GTFS documentation for this change here.
Non-revenue trips:
In order to reduce confusion, we are implementing an explicit filter within the API: revenue_status.
You can view our API documentation PR for this change here.
Uncertainty values:We will also surface uncertainty values, when available, in our data streams, as specified in the StopTimeEvent message documentation. These metrics assess the reliability of real-time bus and subway predictions and will be accessible as follows:
As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thanks,
Developer @ MBTA
Update:
To enhance the accuracy of non-revenue service representation in our GTFS-Realtime feeds, we’ve made the following update to our data structure:
Non-revenue trips:
These adjustments will ensure a more consistent experience across implementations. Please review this change and reach out with any questions.
Thank you,
Developer @ MBTA