GTFS Realtime Quickstart

GTFS realtime Quick Start · OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules Wiki · GitHub

The OneBusAway (OBA) application suite makes it easy to integrate GTFS and GTFS-realtime data into a unified bundle that can power webapps, mobile apps through a REST API, SMS and phone interface, and large displays. For more information on OBA features, see the [OBA application suite documentation] ().

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can be up and running in five minutes with your data and OBA without having to edit any code.

Installing Java

You must have Java installed to use OBA. Please install Java SE JDK 1.6 (i.e., Java 6), since other versions of Java (1.5, 1.7) seem to have problems with annotations used in OBA.

Downloading Files You’ll Need

Downloading the OneBusAway Quick-Start Java Application

The first step is to download the latest OneBusAway Quick-Start Java Application. Pick an application based on what features you are interested in:

In our example, we’ll use the API-only webapp.

Getting Transit Data

To run the quick-start, you will need both a GTFS feed and a GTFS-realtime feed from a transit system.

For our quick-start, we’ll use BART’s GTFS feed and BART’s GTFS-realtime feed.

Let’s Go!

Running OneBusAway is a two-step process:

• Build a transit data bundle: raw transit data is processed into an optimized bundle, geared for fast access.
• Run the OneBusAway webapp: actually start the OneBusAway web applications, using the transit data bundle.

You can perform these two steps either using our simple GUI configuration tool or from the command-line.

Using the GUI

We provide a simple wizard to help you configure and run the OneBusAway quick-start application. Simply double-click the downloaded quick-start war file. Follow the steps and you’ll be up and running in no time.

NOTE: You may need to run the OneBusAway quick-start GUI from the command-line if you want to pass additional options to java, like specifying more memory or server optimization:

java -Xmx1G -server -jar onebusaway-quickstart-assembly.war

Using the Command-Line

To build the bundle, run the following:

java -Xmx1G -server -jar onebusaway-quickstart-assembly.war -build path/to/gtfs.zip path/to/created-transit-bundle

To run the application suite:

java -jar onebusaway-quickstart-assembly.war
 -webapp
 -gtfsRealtimeAlertsUrl=http://www.bart.gov/dev/gtrtfs/alerts.aspx
 -gtfsRealtimeTripUpdatesUrl=http://www.bart.gov/dev/gtrtfs/tripupdate.aspx
 path/to/created-transit-bundle

This specifies that GTFS-realtime alerts and trip-updates should be pulled from the BART GTFS-realtime feeds. If everything goes well, you can now start making calls to the OneBusAway REST API, which is discussed below.

Testing the REST API

The REST API should now be up and running, so you can query the OBA REST API for a variety of transit information via pasting the below URLs into your web browser.

Stops for Location

Retrieve the set of stops near a location using the stops-for-location method:

http://localhost:8080/api/where/stops-for-location.xml?key=TEST&lat=37.785045&lon=-122.407049

  2
  200
  1330945230362
  OK

    ...


        BART_MONT
        37.7893359611
        -122.401485489
        Montgomery St. BART
        MONT
        0

          BART_12
          BART_06
          ...



        BART_POWL
        37.7849710021
        -122.407012285
        Powell St. BART
        POWL
        0

          BART_12
          BART_06
          ...



    false
    false

Arrivals and Departures for Stop

Retrieve the set of real-time arrivals and departures at a particular stop using the arrivals-and-departures-for-stop method:

  2
  200
  1330945364170
  OK


      ...


          BART_BSA_94422
          1330899176218
          MAINTENANCE


              BART




              significant_delays






      BART_POWL



        BART_BSA_94422

Testing the webapp

If you deployed the full OneBusAway webapp Java application that contains the web user interfaces, you can open your browser to the below URL to see the interface:

http://localhost:8080/

Troubleshooting

To see more options for configuring the build and the webapp, including adding real-time information, specify the -help option to get full usage instructions:

java -jar onebusaway-quickstart-assembly.war -help

Also, check out the main OneBusAway Troubleshooting page.

What’s Next?

If you want to get your hands dirty with the code, head over to the OBA Developer Guide for a tutorial on deploying the web applications discussed here from the source code using Eclipse.

Also, see how to configure OneBusAway to consume other other real-time transit data formats.