GTFS Guides
Practical guides that help you read, understand and analyze GTFS transit feeds, whether you are a transit planner, a developer or a data enthusiast. Prefer to dive straight in? Open the app, or read more about the GTFS Viewer and the Map Viewer.
GTFS, the General Transit Feed Specification, is the open format transit agencies use to publish their networks: every route, every stop, and the schedule that connects them. The raw data ships as a set of linked, comma separated files, which is precise but not easy to read on its own. Each guide below pairs an explanation with a live view in TransitLens, so you can check every concept, from a single stop to a full service calendar, against a real feed as you go.
TransitLens Quick Start Guide
Go from a raw GTFS feed to a working map in minutes. Load a feed, explore routes and stops, use the Inspector, apply filters, and analyze transit networks step by step.
Read guideHow to Read GTFS Data
Learn what GTFS is, explore the key files inside a feed, and understand how routes, trips, and stops connect to describe a transit network.
Read guideUnderstanding GTFS Calendars
Understand how calendar.txt and calendar_dates.txt define when transit services run, including regular schedules, exceptions, and holiday service.
Read guideCompare GTFS Feed Versions
Find the routes, stops and service that changed between two releases of a feed, and catch mistakes before you publish.
Read guideGTFS Routes, Trips & Stops Explained
Dive into routes.txt, trips.txt, stops.txt, and shapes.txt: the core files that describe where transit vehicles go and how they get there.
Read guideCheck a GTFS Feed for Errors
Find out-of-order times, impossible speeds, vehicle overlaps and calendar gaps in a feed, by hand and with Feed Health in TransitLens.
Read guideGTFS questions, answered
What is GTFS?
GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) is an open data format for public transit schedules and their associated geographic information. Agencies publish a GTFS feed as a .zip file containing a set of text files, such as routes.txt, trips.txt, and stops.txt, that together describe a transit network. See How to Read GTFS Data for a full breakdown of each file.
What is the difference between GTFS and GTFS Realtime?
GTFS describes the planned schedule: which routes exist and when they are supposed to run. GTFS Realtime is a separate, companion feed that reports what is actually happening, including live vehicle positions, updated arrival predictions, and service alerts. A feed can publish GTFS on its own, or GTFS paired with GTFS Realtime.
Do I need to know how to code to read GTFS data?
No. The files themselves are plain text tables meant for software to consume, but you do not need to write code to make sense of them. TransitLens parses a GTFS feed and renders it as an interactive map, sortable tables, and calendar heatmaps, so you can explore the same data visually.
Where do I find a GTFS feed to practice with?
Most transit agencies publish their GTFS feed on a public open data portal, often linked from their developer or open data page. The Quick Start Guide includes a sample feed you can open immediately if you want to explore before finding one of your own.