Transiter
Transiter is a backend web service that makes it easy to use transit data in web apps, arrival time boards and similar technologies.
Transiter subscribes to GTFS static and realtime feeds and provides integrated views of the data through a REST API. The endpoint for a particular stop, for example, returns the stop's static data (such as its name and GPS coordinates), its realtime data (the list of vehicles that will arrive next, and the times they will arrive), as well as derived data that Transiter computes automatically, such as which routes usually call at the stop.
You can get a sense for the data that's available by navigating through the live demo site. Transiter has a dedicated documentation website
Project status: a migration from Python to Go was recently merged into mainline. There are still some features missing in the Go version and adding these is being tracked in issue #87. The Python version of Transiter can be viewed in this archived GitHub repository.
Getting started
Transiter uses Postgres for storing data,
and by default assumes the database/user/password is transiter/transiter/transiter.
If Docker compose is available you can easily spin up a Postgres instance with this configuration from the root of the repo:
docker-compose up postgres
Transiter is written in Go. With Go installed and the database running, the Transiter server is launched using:
go run . server
Transiter's HTTP API will now be available on localhost:8080.
You can also interact with the server using Transiter client commands.
For example to list all installed transit system run:
go run . list
This will show that there are no transit systems installed, and the next step is install one!
NY/NJ PATH train:
go run . install -f us-ny-path systems/us-ny-path.yaml
New York City subway: If you have an MTA API key:
go run . install --arg mta_api_key=$MTA_API_KEY -f us-ny-subway systems/us-ny-subway.yaml
In either case, the server logs will show that GTFS feed updates are happening, and the HTTP API will be populated with data. If you installed the NYC subway, to get data about the Rockefeller Center station visit:
localhost:8080/systems/us-ny-subway/stops/D15
Transiter's documentation website has much more information, including how to run Tranister with Docker and how to use a non-default Postgres configuration.
Development
Transiter uses sqlc
for generating database access methods.
The schema and queries are stored in the db directory.
The Go files are generated using the following command in the repo root:
sqlc --experimental generate
Transiter uses gRPC for developing the API. The HTTP REST API is generated automatically using annotations in the proto files. Buf is used for compiling the proto files to the Go code:
buf generate