Where to Find a GTFS Feed and How to Open It

This guide is about finding and opening a feed. If you first want to know what GTFS is and what each file inside the zip means, read What Is GTFS? How to Read GTFS Data, File by File.

Where GTFS feeds are published

A GTFS feed is a single .zip file, published at a fixed link that the publisher replaces with each new release. There are three places to look for a GTFS data download, and it is worth checking them in this order.

1. The agency's own open data page

Most agencies that publish GTFS do it themselves, on a page called something like Open data, Developers, Data feeds or Transparency. Search for the agency's name with "GTFS" or "open data". The agency's own page is the best source when you find it: it carries the current link, the licence that governs reuse, and often a contact for data questions. Once you have a feed, its feed_info.txt can point back to the publisher through feed_publisher_url and feed_contact_url.

2. National and regional access points

Many countries and regions run a transport data portal that gathers the feeds of every operator in their area. In the European Union these are the national access points for transport data, and some states, provinces and metropolitan areas run their own. They are useful when one region has many small operators, and some publish one combined feed for the whole region. Search for your country or region with "transport open data" or "national access point".

3. Open feed catalogues

When you do not know who publishes the feed, search a catalogue of GTFS feeds:

• The Mobility Database, run by MobilityData, lists GTFS, GTFS Realtime and GBFS feeds from around the world. Each feed page gives the producer's own download link, the location it covers, and a history of the releases the catalogue has collected, each with its own zip. The TIB Mallorca page is an example.
• Transitland lists feeds by operator and region, and also keeps the versions it has fetched over time.

A catalogue tells you where a feed lives; the publisher still decides what is in it and how you may use it. Read the licence on the publisher's page before you build on the data.

How to tell it is the right feed

Search results often show several feeds for one city: an old link, a feed per operator, a regional feed, a test feed. Before you spend time on one, open the zip and read three things.

• The dates in feed_info.txt. feed_start_date and feed_end_date give the period the publisher says the feed covers, and feed_version tells releases apart. If the end date has passed, look for a newer release. The file is optional, so also look at the first and last dates in calendar.txt and calendar_dates.txt, which say when service actually runs.
• The operators in agency.txt. This file names every agency in the feed. If the operator you want is not listed, it is the wrong feed, or that operator publishes its own.
• One agency or a region. A regional feed lists several agencies, and each route in routes.txt says which one runs it through agency_id. That tells you whether you are looking at one operator's network or a whole region's, which matters when you compare numbers with someone else's.

Static GTFS and GTFS Realtime

Search results mix two kinds of feed, and they are not interchangeable.

• Static GTFS (also called GTFS Schedule) is the zip file: routes, stops, trips, timetables, calendars and route shapes. It changes when the timetable changes, typically every few weeks or months. This is the feed this guide is about.
• GTFS Realtime is a set of live endpoints, usually vehicle positions, trip updates and service alerts, that refresh every few seconds. They describe what is happening now in terms of the trips, routes and stops of a static feed, so they are only useful together with the matching static GTFS. The format is described in the GTFS Realtime reference.

If a download is a .zip with .txt files inside, it is static GTFS. If the link returns binary data that changes each time you load it, it is GTFS Realtime.

Open the feed in TransitLens

TransitLens opens a static GTFS feed in the browser, with nothing to install. There are two ways in:

• Import Feed from URL. Copy the link to the .zip, paste it into the search field on Home and press Enter, or choose Web link. You can also type an agency or a city there to find it in the public catalogue.
• Drag and drop. If you downloaded the zip, drop it anywhere on Home, or choose Local ZIP to pick it from your computer.

Worked example: TIB Mallorca

TIB is the bus and rail network of Mallorca, and its feed is listed in the Mobility Database. The release of 22/04/2026 is at this link, which you can paste straight into Import Feed from URL:

https://files.mobilitydatabase.org/mdb-2766/mdb-2766-202604220056/mdb-2766-202604220056.zip

We counted these from the zip itself:

• routes.txt has 78 routes.
• stops.txt has 777 rows, of which 760 are stops or platforms where riders board. The other rows describe stations, their entrances and the connecting points inside them.
• feed_info.txt declares a period of 01/11/2023 to 21/10/2026.
• calendar.txt runs from 01/11/2023 to 31/12/2035, and calendar_dates.txt holds exceptions from 01/05/2026 to 25/12/2026.

The declared end date of this release, 21/10/2026, has already passed, and the Mobility Database page for TIB lists newer releases. That is exactly the check from the section above: for real work, take the latest release, and keep this one for following the guides on this site that use it.

Five first checks after opening

1. The dates. Does the feed cover today and the weeks you care about? Compare the declared period in feed_info.txt with the service dates, and open the Calendar to see which days have service.
2. The operators and routes. Are the agencies and route names the ones you expected? A missing route usually means you have one operator's feed instead of the region's, or the other way round.
3. The map. Do the stops and route lines sit where the network really is? A stop in the sea or a line that cuts across the country points at wrong coordinates or a broken shape.
4. Feed Health. Open Feed Health for a list of suspicious schedules, calendar gaps and geometry problems, each with its evidence. Check a GTFS Feed for Errors explains every check and how to repeat it by hand.
5. What changed. If you used an earlier release of the same feed, compare the two before you replace it, so removed routes and stops do not surprise you. Compare GTFS Feed Versions shows how.

What TransitLens does not do

TransitLens opens a feed and lets you explore it: the map, the routes, stops and trips, the calendar and the checks above. It does not host or publish feeds, so the feed itself always comes from the agency, the access point or the catalogue. It is not a validator: Feed Health looks for common problems, and the official check against the full GTFS specification is the MobilityData GTFS Validator. And it is not a journey planner for riders: it shows how a network is built and scheduled, not the best way from A to B.

To keep learning, read How to Read GTFS Data and Understanding GTFS Calendars.