Passenger launches Open Data portals for Go-Ahead operators

Brighton & Hove Buses and Go South Coast operations including Morebus, Bluestar and Southern Vectis now offer an Open Data portal on their Passenger-powered websites.

Two years ago, the government announced regulations requiring the provision of open data by all UK operators. To be compliant, operators must make route and timetable information openly available by the end of 2019, simple ticket information and real-time bus data available by 2020 and more detailed ticket and fare data available by 2022.

The south coast-based subsidiaries join Nottingham City Transport, Yellow Buses, Reading Buses, Blackpool Transport, Cardiff Bus and Borders Buses, who also published their data recently.

High-quality open data to power inclusive innovation

The Open Data portals are complete with the source data that powers the website’s journey planning functionality, including associated Open Street Map (OSM) data, timetables and departure boards.

The portals include route and timetable data in the TransXChange (TXC) format, the UK standard for public transport data specified by the new regulations. It also goes a step further and provides the data in General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) format, a standard that emerged from a project involving Google and TriMet in the US in 2010. It is now widely adopted by the transport tech and planning communities because of its ease of use.

As Passenger ‘Premium’ customers, the new Open Data portals have been released for the Go-Ahead operators, as part of their existing digital services software license. For Brighton & Hove Buses, this is a welcome addition following the launch of their new website in December 2018.

Tom Quay, CEO of Passenger says:

“The team and I set out to empower operators to release their open data ahead of government set regulations, and the feedback we’ve received after launching has been incredible. Working closely with the Go-Ahead Group we know that it is committed to supporting those with disabilities to access public transport services. The decision to publish this open data underpins its goals to improve the facilities and services it provides, to enable independence.”

Open data portals for customers

If you are interested in launching an Open Data portal to better align with the forthcoming regulations, please get in touch or follow our newsletter for more info.

Datasets can be downloaded from the operator websites:

• Bluestar
• Morebus
• Southern Vectis
• Swindon’s Bus Company
• Unilink
• UNIBUS
• Nottingham City Transport
• Brighton and Hove Bus
• Yellow Buses
• Courtney Buses
• Blackpool Transport
• Reading Buses (further data added)
• Cardiff Bus
• Borders Bus

Image: morebus.com Service Map