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Most geographic data (e.g. map data) is currently either locked into proprietary formats and systems or under licensing restrictions. These limitations prevent people from sharing, viewing, updating this data without permission from the owner or vendor, and also limit innovations in areas such as location-based services. Therefore, open-source and open-data solution are needed. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is a common format for public transportation agencies’ schedules and their geographic information for bus stops. However, transit agencies struggle to maintain and update these very large official datasets. Meanwhile, OpenStreetMap, an online free-content repository of geographic data driven by contributions from an online community, currently has little information about public transportation, especially in the United States, but it has a large number of users willing to freely contribute their efforts to record and improve geographic data for their communities.

In this project, we create a tool for synchronizing transit data between the public transportation agency’s official GTFS dataset and OpenStreetMap. The application therefore enables public transportation agencies to upload data into OpenStreetMap, where the online community can edit and correct the bus stop locations and amenities for their community. The application also enables transit agencies to retrieve this updated data so they can improve their own datasets. Successfully translating GTFS data into the OpenStreetMap format will facilitate over 110 transit agencies across the U.S. to share their public-domain data with each other, the community, as well as software developers.

See the README for basic information about the project.

Wiki pages:

• Getting Started