CHAPTER 4
Findings and Applications: ICBA: Data Included and Guidance Forward
The data collected through engagement with the intercity bus industry was used to populate an ICBA map with the help of BTS colleagues. This map and associated resources are available on the BTS website (https://www.bts.gov/intercity-busing/data-maps-and-apps) and include information about the ICBA effort, instructions for participation and a list of participating carriers, a registration page, and links to a full map and stops and routes data that can be downloaded through the BTS geodata portal (https://geodata.bts.gov/). Of the 126 bona fide intercity bus carriers and 110 rural transit agencies with intercity services identified by the research team for inclusion in the atlas, data was obtained from 49 and transmitted to BTS for addition to the current map; some carriers services are not yet represented due to technical issues with the feeds obtained, and other carriers services may be represented in whole or in part through cooperation with Amtrak Thruway (e.g., Travel Washington’s Apple, Dungeness, Gold, and Grape lines; Maryland’s BayRunner Shuttle).
Data Included
Carriers Included
As mentioned previously, 49 GTFS feeds were obtained through carrier outreach and GTFS creation and later shared with colleagues at BTS for inclusion. The following list includes all feeds transmitted:
- 380 Express
- Amtrak (Thruway Bus and Amtrak Rail)
- Badger Bus Lines
- Bustang
- Central Oregon Breeze
- CJ Motorcoach
- Curry Public Transit
- Dattco Bus Company
- Delmarva Community Transit
- Eastern Sierra Transit Authority
- ECO Transit
- Express Arrow
- FlixBus
- Fullington Trailways
- Grant County People Mover
- Greyhound
- Groome Transportation
- Lane Transit District’s Diamond Express
- Michigan Flyer
- Mountain Line Transit Authority
- Mountain States Express
- North Central Montana Transit
- North Country Transit District
- Northern Transit Interlocal
- Northfield Lines
- Oregon POINT
- OurBus
- Pacific Crest Lines
- Panhandle Trails
- Peter Pan/Bonanza Bus Lines
- Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway
- Red Coach
- Redding Area Bus Authority
- Rio Vista Delta Breeze
- Rochester City Lines
- Sage Stage
- San Miguel Authority for Regional Transportation
- Sandy Area Metro
- Southeastern Stages
- Southern Trailways
- Summit Stages
- Sunway Charters
- Taos Express
- Tri-Valley Transit
- Trinity Transit
- Ventura VISTA
- Vermont Translines
- Virginia Breeze
- Yosemite Area Regional Transit System
The following list details all carriers that have services represented in whole or in part on the map, for example via Amtrak Thruway’s cooperation with other carriers:
- Adirondack Trailways
- Altamont Corridor Express
- Alvand Transportation
- AmericanStar
- Amtrak
- Amtrak Chartered Motorcoach
- Amtrak Thruway
- Apple Line
- Arrow Express
- Arrow Trailways
- Badger Bus Lines
- BeeLine Express Bus
- Bustang
- C&J
- Cantrail
- Capital Trailways
- Central Oregon Breeze
- Coach USA
- CorridorRides
- Curry Public Transit
- DATTCO
- Delmarva Community Transit
- Detroit Ann Arbor Express
- Diamond Express
- Dungeness Line
- ECO Transit
- Eastern Sierra Transit Authority
- El Dorado Transit
- Executive Transportation
- Express Arrow
- FlixBus
- Fullington Trailways
- Gold Line
- Grand Canyon Railway
- Grape Line
- Greyhound
- Groome Transportation
- Indian Trails
- Jefferson Lines
- Lamers Connect
- Martz Trailways
- Michigan Flyer
- Mountain Line Transit Authority
- Mountain States Express
- Mt. Hood Express
- New York Trailways
- North Central Montana Transit
- North County Transit District
- Northern Transit Interlocal
- Northfield Lines
- Northwestern Trailways
- Oregon POINT
- OurBus
- Pacific Crest Bus Lines
- Panhandle Trails
- People Mover
- Peoria Charter
- Peter Pan Bonanza Division
- Peter Pan Bus Lines
- Pine Hill Trailways
- Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway Co.
- Red Coach
- Redding Area Bus Authority
- Rio Vista Delta Breeze
- RoadRunneR Shuttle
- Rochester City Lines
- Route 66 Express
- SMART
- Sage Stage
- Sandy Area Metro
- Smart Way Connector
- Southeast Area Transit (SEAT)
- Southeastern Stages
- Stagecoach Express
- Summit Stage
- Sunway Charters
- The Lift
- Tillamook County Transportation District
- Tri-Valley Transit
- Trinity Transit
- Valley Express
- Van Galder Coach USA
- Vegas Airporter
- Ventura County Transportation Commission
- Vermont Translines
- Virginia Breeze
- Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System
Services from all 48 continental states are represented in the map, but as discussed previously, some areas and segments of the industry are more robustly represented than others. The Northeast, California, Colorado, and Oregon have multiple carriers represented, but areas like the Great Plains and Mountain West are less well-covered by the map; Jefferson Lines, for example, is the only carrier included for North Dakota and is supplemented by another carrier’s three stops along the state border for South Dakota. Other nongeographic segments of the industry also remain underrepresented and less well understood, namely carriers serving certain ethnodemographic groups.
Attributes Included
A variety of information is tied to each route and stop included in the map, populated from the data included in each carrier’s GTFS feed and from U.S. Census geospatial data. The data included for routes and for stops differs. For routes, the following information is available, mostly derived from routes.txt:
- The carrier or agency providing service, based on agency.txt
- Route description, if included
- Route full name and short name
- Route type
- URL to a route web page, if one is available
More information is available for individual stops; since they are located at one single point and do not cross between regions, more geographic information can be appended. The attributes included for stops include the following:
- Agency name, from agency.txt
- Name of the American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian area in which a stop is located, if it is in one, from U.S. Census data
- County, from U.S. Census data
- Country
- Stop name, from stops.txt
- Location type, if provided in stops.txt
- Place name (municipality, census designated place, etc.), from U.S. Census data
- State name and abbreviation
- Stop time zone, from stops.txt
- Stop URL, if provided in stops.txt
- Urban area name, from U.S. Census data
- Urban and rural area classification, from FTA and U.S. Census data
- Wheelchair accessibility, from stops.txt
While an expansion of the data included could increase its utility, the information provided by the current ICBA is still useful in completing several tasks. Regarding its primary purpose, being able to gain a sense of the extent of intercity bus service available or not available in each
area, the atlas map with current participation levels does still serve as a useful starting point. However, users should be aware that not all carriers are represented, and they may have to determine whether more carriers serve the region. In addition, the data included can be used to perform higher-level market analyses to investigate opportunities for new services, examine the possibility of colocation of stops by multiple carriers serving the same locality or the potential for new stops, explore transfer availability and levels of transit accessibility, and assist in data visualizations.
Maintenance Plan
In part because of the lower exposure to assistance and public planning afforded to it in comparison to other modes represented by agencies within the U.S. DOT, the intercity bus industry can be prone to expansions and contractions associated with changes in the market (as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic), and the shape of the network is constantly evolving. As such, maintenance of the atlas is crucial to ensuring that it remains a useful resource for all interested parties.
The research team coordinated with colleagues at BTS, the party responsible for the maintenance of the current map, to develop plans for a maintenance and improvements guide for the ICBA after the project closes and responsibility of the atlas has been transferred. Elements of the maintenance plan are discussed in further detail below.
Relationship Management
One of the most critical tasks facing the inheritors of the ICBA is continued engagement with the intercity bus industry, carriers already participating and those not yet represented in the map. This task (1) ensures that updated GTFS is obtained and added to the map so it can reflect services as they exist, (2) enables new carriers to be added to the atlas, and (3) increases the atlas’ utility to stakeholders as greater coverage is obtained.
Assigning a staff member responsibility for relationship management to aid in efficient communication and continued progress toward building the atlas would be a helpful contact between project staff and the industry as a whole, with much of their role related to (1) presenting technical information about the map; (2) discussing the status of the project with industry members, policymakers, and other stakeholders; and (3) assisting with obtaining and updating GTFS feeds. Regular meetings and communications (like a newsletter) may be considered to create an ongoing and positive relationship with stakeholders. To maintain the atlas in its current state, work hours could range from 10 to 20 hours per week, but more time, perhaps up to 40 hours, would be needed to expand and further develop the ICBA.
A sample job description follows and includes many of the tasks envisioned for the individual responsible:
- Perform outreach to new carriers to expand the ICBA portfolio and perform the onboarding tasks to bring their feed data into the ICBA;
- Understand bus carrier and planner’s objectives, business drivers and needs to optimize the value delivered by the project;
- Update and generate monthly and quarterly client reports in accordance with established timelines;
- Work closely with BTS data analysts to ensure adoption of transit data feed specifications (i.e., GTFS) by carriers;
- Work directly with carriers and provide required support to ensure all issues including escalations are handled quickly and efficiently, as well as to provide support with updates to GTFS feeds;
- Collaborate with internal leaders to ensure project key performance indicators are being reached and that adoption of the transit data feed specifications are meeting and exceeding the carriers expectations;
- Streamline and optimize business processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness;
- Utilize BTS reporting tools to create visually compelling and interactive dashboards and reports; and
- Update existing guides and carrier facing documents and create new reference/training materials on the development and use of GTFS data.
To aid in completion of these tasks and improved organization of engagement, the inheritor of the atlas may consider the use of a client relationship management tool to track communication with carriers. This could include the notation of any issues expressed by the carrier, records of meetings, and indications of status (MOU signed, GTFS submitted, etc.).
The person responsible for relationship management could also consider how to best publicize the Atlas and encourage expanded participation. While work has been conducted with BTS to develop an effective narrative, this is still untested. Possibilities to better refine this pitch could include meeting with participating carriers to inquire about what may have motivated them to join this effort or meeting with industry representatives like lobbyists to discuss what may help convince carriers to share their information.
GTFS Data Entry and Maintenance
In addition to maintaining and expanding existing relationships with the intercity bus industry and other stakeholders, the organization inheriting the ICBA will also be responsible for GTFS data entry and some related maintenance. While it can be hoped that GTFS feeds submitted for inclusion will closely follow GTFS best practices and be free of other errors, it is likely that some issues will be found that may prevent a feed from being added to the map.
The person or persons responsible for GTFS data entry and maintenance will need to possess knowledge of the GTFS format and its best practices to effectively perform any necessary tasks. These may include running GTFS validation and determining whether a feed is usable, performing data transformation and geocoding tasks for entry into the Atlas, watching to ensure that new versions of a feed are entered before the prior version expires, and coordinating with those responsible for relationship management to obtain updated feeds when issues occur or a feed is near expiration. Depending on resource availability, the ICBA project may also need to consider creating GTFS for carriers that have publicly available schedules and stop locations or for those who provide this information.
Regarding timelines for GTFS maintenance, those responsible in the future for the ICBA will build strong enough relationships for carriers to proactively contact when updates are made to their GTFS feeds. In the immediate term, however, it would be helpful to contact carriers about feed updates quarterly or bi-annually to ensure that the Atlas map accurately reflects existing service.
One idea that has been discussed as a potential incentive for carriers participating in the Atlas is to build a web map of their routes and stops for inclusion on their website as this is still not available on the websites of many smaller carriers. This would follow a similar workflow to the preparation of GTFS for the atlas map, but with only one feed. If the inheriting organization does
decide to pilot this idea, the person or persons responsible for data entry and maintenance will likely also hold responsibility for this task due to the similar technical processes.
Onboarding, Training, and Support
For those carriers opting to participate in the ICBA, especially those that have not yet developed GTFS on their own, onboarding and support will be necessary to ensure continuing cooperation, application of GTFS best practices and efficient GTFS development, and the success of the atlas project in creating a useful resource. Initial onboarding will help to kick-off carriers’ relationships with the organization inheriting the atlas and introduce them to the project and may cover some of the following topics:
- A quick introduction to the ICBA project and the ICBA map;
- Objectives of the ICBA and benefits of participation;
- Responsibilities of various stakeholders (planners, policymakers, bus carriers, organization maintaining the atlas);
- An introduction to GTFS, if needed;
- TRANSIT-data-tools platform, if use continues beyond project end; and
- ICBA best practices.
This process could be conducted as a webinar, allowing participants to ask all necessary questions, or potentially as a set of pre-prepared video trainings or written documents to be distributed to participating carriers, depending on resource availability.
In addition to initial onboarding, the inheriting organization will be expected to provide support to carriers participating in the ICBA, as conducted by research team members at Arcadis and RSG during the course of the project and offered by BTS through its ICBA mailbox at nicba@dot.gov. At minimum, such support will be needed when it is determined that a GTFS feed has errors or formatting inconsistencies preventing its use in the atlas; in this scenario, the inheriting organization would want to provide guidance to allow carriers to efficiently remedy issues uncovered during this process and better conform to best practices. The GTFS user guide for bus carriers, ticketing services, schedulers, and business development planners produced under Task 9 of this project can serve as a useful resource for this and should be integrated into support processes and distributed to interested parties.
This support could be extended further to aid in expansion of the ICBA, depending on resource availability. Following the example of the mailbox already maintained by BTS, those taking on responsibility for the atlas may want to offer ad hoc assistance developing GTFS for specific areas when they run into issues, especially where they may concern best practices; such support could also include training carriers to develop their own GTFS like that offered by Arcadis and RSG during this project, especially for larger carriers that may not qualify for the support offered alongside the RTAP GTFS Builder.
Advancement of the ICBA
While the research team has built the foundation for a tool that will offer much needed insight into the country’s intercity bus network, we recognize that such a resource will always be able to be improved upon. This section discusses potential improvements to the ICBA envisioned by the research team, research panel, and other colleagues.
One potential improvement to the atlas would include the appending of additional attributes to the stops and routes in the existing map either directly from or derived from values already
included in the GTFS feeds submitted. By referencing other fields within carriers’ GTFS feeds, those maintaining the atlas could append important figures concerning service characteristics, including the following:
- Weekday, Saturday, and Sunday service spans
- Approximate headways by operator
- Number of trips on each service day
With these attributes calculated, atlas users would potentially obtain a much better sense of the actual level of service available on a given route or at a given stop and use this to inform market analyses, explorations of transfer availability, and other tasks.
Beyond additional information directly from GTFS feeds themselves, some stakeholders have expressed interest in the inclusion of other geographic information, especially demographic data. The addition of layers showing population density, and especially the density of underserved populations, from the U.S. Census could aid significantly in the use of the atlas to identify gaps in service.