1) GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) is an open data format for public transportation schedules and maps that has become a global standard. 2) In 2014, Japan lacked open transit data in the GTFS format despite many transit apps, but worked to establish a system for commercial sharing of train schedules. 3) In 2015, researchers published the first GTFS open data for minibuses in Japan, starting efforts to promote more open transit data nationwide.

1. Introduction of history and community of GTFS-JP
Meeting with Leo Frachet @MobilityData
Masaki Ito @GTFS-JP, Univ. of Tokyo

2. • A data format for public transportation schedules and
geographic information of facilities.
• A de-fact standard used worldwide
• A single ZIP file containing multiple CSV files
GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification)
Stops and Routes Schedules Fee

3. Open Data Eco System
Download Open Data
Help Passnegers

4. GTFS repository is available
• Aggregate and archive worldwide GTFS files
– Provide API to access the data
http://transitfeeds.com https://transit.land

5. No GTFS Open Data in Japan in 2014

6. Transit App Companies in Japan
NAVITIME
Eki-spart
(VAL Laboratory)
Ekitan Jorudan
Yahoo! Transit Google Maps
Apple Maps
Provide
data
Provide partial dataProvide data
and engine
Focus on trains

7. Japan has a long history of a Route
Planner
1988-
Eki-spart: World first commercial route planner
1998-
Jordan Route Planner with train schedules

8. Established system to trade train schedules
commercially
JR
Private
Railway
Company
Train Schedule
Publisher
Train Schedule
Publisher
Transit App Developer
Private
Railway
Company
Route Bus
Agency
Route Bus
Agency
Route Bus
Agency
Private
Railway
Company
• Transit app developer need to contact
to route bus agencies directory
because there is no aggregator of bus
schedule in Japan.
• 100% coverage of route bus is not easy

9. Bottom up approach for Transit Open
Data is only the possible way
Shinkansen
Intercity Rail
Regional Rail,
Commuter Rail
Intercity Bus
LRT, BRT
Regional Bus/minibus
Speed, Distance,
Price,
No. of passengers
Digital data are commercially available
Data are not digitalized and opened

10. First GTFS Open Data in Japan in 2015
Made by Ito and Colleagues
Minibus in Shizuoka Prefecture
Owning to the OpenTrans.it
project, minibus data in Kakegawa,
Shimada, Susono were published.
Development of OpenTrans.it
by ITO and local developers in Shizuoka

11. Promotion of GTFS Open Data since 2015

12. Bus Data Commission at the Ministry of
Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
was organized in 2016
• Japanese government arranged a
commission to discuss effective collection of
route bus schedules
– Dec. 2016 to March 2017
• Chair
– Masaki Ito The Univ. of Tokyo
• Route Planner Developer
– Yoshikuni Inoue (Jorudan)
– Koji Sakurai (Ekitan)
– Masahiro Shinohara (Navitime Japan)
– Naoki Yamamoto (Val Laboratory)
• Diagram Making App Developer
– Yuichi Ichikawa (Kozo Keikaku)
– Kotaro Tanga (Kobo)
• Others
– Hiroyuki Ito (Community)
– Haruo Endo (Nihon Bus Association)
– Masakiro Bessyo (Council of Open Data for Public
Transportation)

13. Published 1st GTFS-JP document from the
Japanese government in March 2017

14. Free bus timetable maker “Sono Sujiya”
• “Sonosujiya” is free but advanced bus timetable
maker developed by Koichi Takano since 2015
• Many Japanese route bus agencies start to use to
manage route bus and to publish open data

15. GTFS Open Data in early 2018
Nomi City in Ishikawa Prefecture
Minibus data is published in
Jan.2017 on the official web.
Shingu Town in Fukuoka Pref.
Minibus and ferry data are
available since late 2016.
Yamanashi Prefecture
Major Route Bus
Operators(Yamanashi Kotsu
and Fuji Kyuko) opened their
data in Feb. 2017.
Uno Bus in Okayama Prefecture
GTFS and GTFS realtime are available since
2016.
Muroran City in Hokkaido
Official open data with an independent format
are converted to GTFS by the local engineer.
Cities in Shizuoka Prefecture
Owning to the OpenTrans.it
project, minibus data in Shimada
and Yaizu cities were published.

16. Nov. 2018: 30 Agencies

17. Feb. 2019: 90 agencies

18. Okayama: GTFS Hotspot

19. • Both schedule data and
realtime data (location) are
opened
Competition to open the data by bus agencies
Agency Static Realtime
Uno ✓ ✓
Shimoden ✓
Ryobi-Group
(Ryobi and Okaden)
✓ ✓
Chutetsu ✓（β）
Megurin

20. • あ
GTFS-Realtime data are also open

21. 3 Prefecture offices worked to open
regional bus data in 2018
Saga Toyama Gunma
2 agencies 15 agencies 40 agencies

22. • Includes GTFS Realtime as
Japanese standard data format
• Publish multiple documents for
agencies, transportation
authorities etc
• Don’t make new specs, but
adopt international standards as
Japanese standard in GTFS
Realtime format
GTFS-JP Ver.2 released in March 2019
http://www.mlit.go.jp/sogoseisaku/transport/sosei_transport_tk_000067.html

23. • The government release
markdown files of GTFS-JP
ver.2 in addition to pdf files
• GTFS-JP community puts
the markdown into GitHub
to keep up-to-date
• The latest documents are
available online
https://www.gtfs.jp
Keep the governmental document up-to-
date by the GTFS-JP community