Display GTFS - Routes on a Map without Shapes

Question

I try to consume some GTFS Feeds and work with them. I created a MySQL Database and a Python Script, which downloads GTFS - Files and import them in the right tables.

Now I am using the LeafLet Map - Framework, to display the Stops on the map. The next step is to display the routes of a bus or tram line on the map. In the GTFS - Archive is no shapes.txt.

Is there a way to display the routes without the shapes.txt ?

Thanks!

Kali

Answer 1

You will have to generate your own shape using underlying street data or public transit lines. See detailed post by Anton Dubrau (he is an angel for writing this blog post).

https://medium.com/transit-app/how-we-built-the-worlds-prettiest-auto-generated-transit-maps-12d0c6fa502f

Specifically:

Here’s an example. In the diagram below, we have a trip with three stops, and no shape information whatsoever. We extract the set of tracks the trip uses from OSM (grey lines). Our matching algorithm then finds a trajectory (black line) that follows the OSM, while minimizing its length and the errors to the stops (e1, e2, e3).