In mem48/UK2GTFS: Converts UK transport timetable datasets to GTFS format

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
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Introduction

The UK has two main sources of public transport timetable data traveline publishes data on buses and light rail and ATOC pubishes data on heavy rail. Each uses a data fromat that is unique to that organisation and both formats are old and difficult to use. Many countires have adopeted the GTFS format which was developed by Google as a simple standard for publishing timetable data. Due to the wide-spread adoption of GTFS many useful tools have been develope that accept GTFS files as inputs. This package is intended to make the conversion of UK data to the GTFS format simple and easy.

Capabilities - why we need another package

There are a number of pre-existing options for converting data to GTFS. This package aims to go beyond basic conversion by providing a range or additonal fucntionality:

1. Data conversion
   • Conversion of TransXchange to GTFS
   • Conversion of ATOC CIF files to GTFS
2. Data cleaning, the raw data often contains clear error, the package does not blindly convert but also corrects some known errors
   • Improved locations of tiplocs
   • Correction of mispelt organisations
   • Removal of on-demand bus services (GTFS does not support services that are on-demand)
3. Data polishing
   • Support of journeys past midnight
   • Routing of train journeys along tracks rather than straight lines between stops

Installation

You can install the UK2GTFS package using the devtools package.

install.packages("devtools") # If you do not already have the devtools package
devtools::install_github("mem48/UK2GTFS")

Getting Data

ATOC Data - for trains

Data for trains can be downloaded from http://data.atoc.org/how-to you will need to register for a free account and login.

TransXchange Data - for bus, tram, and metro

Data for other modes can be downloaded from https://www.travelinedata.org.uk/traveline-open-data/data-reporting/ you will need to apply for access to the FTP sever to download the data.

Using the package

Converting ATOC Data to GTFS

Load the package, and use the atoc2gtfs function. The fucntnon requires the following arguments.

• path_in is the file path to the ATOC timetable file, this comes a ziped folder with a name like ttis123.zip
• path_out is the path to a folder where the results will be saved
• name is the file name of the result by default gtfs.zip
• silent if FALSE extra information is displayed duing processing
• ncores If > 1 then mulicore processing is used to speed up the processing
• locations station locations can be tiplocs object provided with the package (default) or taken from the ATOC "file" (known to have errors) or file path to CSV file.
• agency agency details which are not included in the network rail files, default used example data provided by the package

library(UK2GTFS)
#path_in = "C:/Users/Malcolm/OneDrive - University of Leeds/UK Trains Timetables/ATOC Data/2019-08-31/ttis381.zip"
#path_out = "C:/Users/Malcolm/OneDrive - University of Leeds/UK Trains Timetables/ATOC Data/2019-08-31/"
path_in = "E:/OneDrive - University of Leeds/UK Trains Timetables/ATOC Data/2019-08-31/ttis381.zip"
path_out = "E:/OneDrive - University of Leeds/UK Trains Timetables/ATOC Data/2019-08-31/"
atoc2gtfs(path_in = path_in, 
          path_out = path_out,
          name = "gtfs4",
          silent = FALSE, 
          ncores = 6)

mem48/UK2GTFS documentation built on Sept. 23, 2019, 6:05 p.m.