The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is a standard format for public transit schedules and geographical information. It was developed by Google and Portland TriMet for the public transportation system of Portland, USA and was launched on December 7, 2005. It consists of multiple CSV (comma-separated values) files contained in a single zip file. Key information encoded in GTFS includes: transit agency information, route information, trip schedules, stop locations, route shapes, etc. GTFS has quickly been adopted as the most accepted standard in formatting transit information in a way that can be easily shared across multiple applications. Popular applications such as Open Trip Planner, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Trafi and other Mobile Transit Apps all use GTFS to offer trip planning services to their users. When you use Google Maps to find out how to use the trains and buses to get from one point to another, you are using GTFS Data.
