Step-free accessibility & more: GTFS-Pathways & GTFS-Vehicles #108
Description
Hi GTFS community!
Most of you already know it, but we are working on a set of GTFS extensions allowing to make trips for people in wheelchairs, taking in account elevator downtimes, entrance closures, full buses and more. By describing stations and vehicles, we also get some often-requested data, like occupancy, AC...
After a few months of work, we have two complementary sets of extension. The logic behind slicing the extensions is to allow each agency to use only the portion which is useful for it. E.g. if an agency just want to say which buses have AC or how full are the buses, they won't have to even read the extensions about giving train composition or boarding areas in train stations.
GTFS-Pathways extensions (bit.ly/gtfs-pathways)
- GTFS-Stations (already added to the specification) defines stations & entrances (It contains the concepts of “station” and “entrance” defined using the fields location_type and parent_station in the stops.txt file. For more information, see the official specification).
- GTFS-Pathways & GTFS-Levels describes the inside of the station schematically (i.e. as a graph), between its entrances/exits and its platforms, to route riders using trip planning software (e.g. routing somebody in wheelchair with a step-free journey from entrance to platform, or somebody with a stroller with journey with as step as possible).
- GTFS-PathwayClosures describes the evolution of the station thru time (e.g. which pathway is being closed at which time for construction, or what are the opening schedule of an entrance linked to a mall).
- GTFS-PathwayUpdates describes the real-time evolution of the station (e.g. an elevator is down, if entrances are closed because of a demonstration or event).
GTFS-Vehicles extensions (bit.ly/gtfs-vehicles)
- GTFS-Vehicles describes the vehicles themselves (e.g. Does the vehicle have A/C? Is there a ramp for riders in wheelchair? Is the bus full?). This extension is the core of the proposal and is required for every other extension.
- GTFS-VehicleCouplings describes the coupling of vehicles into composed vehicles like trains (e.g. Which carriage is the restaurant carriage? Which one is First Class? In which one can I go with a wheelchair?).
- GTFS-VehicleBoardings describes where the vehicle stops on a platform (e.g. Where should I wait on the platform? Combined with VehicleCouplings, this tells where will stop my carriage, or in which carriage I should to alight in front of the exit).
- GTFS-VehicleDoors describes the properties of each door of a vehicle (e.g. Can we board or alight at this door? Is this door wheelchair accessible?).
I'm planning to keep on working on Google Docs for now instead of opening a Pull Request, because I think that the interface is more user friendly. Therefore you can provide feedbacks on the Google Doc directly.
Thoughts?