Glossary of Google Realtime Transit terminology
Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
This page provides a list of realtime transit terms and definitions to help transit partners and
data aggregators use the terms consistently across multiple documents or user interfaces.
| Terms |
| Carriage |
A separate section of a train that carries passengers. |
| Entity |
A distinguishable object that represents a real-world existence, such as a vehicle, trip,
or stop. Entities are identifiable with a unique ID, and each entity type has a set of fields
that describe it. |
| Header |
A record that provides metadata about a feed, such as its version and timestamp. |
| Message |
A record that contains data about a particular entity. Messages are included in feed
messages, and they provide information about the entities in the feed. |
| Realtime feed |
A file that complies with the GTFS-realtime format and provides current information about
the transit service. The file's contents cover trip updates, service alerts, or vehicle
positions |
| Service alerts |
Alerts that provide passengers with updates when there’s a disruption on the transit
network. |
| Trip updates |
Updates about the delays or cancellations of individual trips. |
| Vehicle positions |
Information about the current location of a particular vehicle. |
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2024-10-16 UTC.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2024-10-16 UTC."],[[["This glossary defines common Realtime Transit terms for data consistency across platforms and documents."],["Understanding these terms helps transit partners and data aggregators correctly interpret and utilize realtime transit data."],["Definitions cover key concepts like Entities (vehicles, trips, stops), Realtime Feeds, Service Alerts, and Trip Updates."]]],[]]