This is a slide at the State of the Map 2017 held in Aizu Wakamatsu, Japan. In this talk, I will give an overview of open data in Japanese public transport. Open data movement in Japanese public transport was far behind compared with Europe and the US. Recently however, remarkable activities by some transport agencies and the goverment have arised to accelerate Japanese open data. I will introduce these activities including the way to contribute to OpenStreetMap.

1. State of the Map 2017 in Aizu
Challenges of Open Data in
Japanese Public Transport
MASAKI ITO
THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
@niyalist
Aug. 18, 2017

2. 10+ years history of Open Data about
Public Transit in US
You can download train schedules on the “Development” page of public transit operators

3. Start in 2005, gradually increasing the
coverage
248/864 （29%） public transit operators provide open data in 2012
“Open Data: Challenges and Opportunities for Transit Agencies”, 2015.

4. Public Transit Open Data in Europe
SNCF in FranceLondon DB in Germany

5. GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification)
A format for public transportation schedules and
associated geographic information such as locations of
stops and shapes of the routes.
A de-fact standard used worldwide
A single ZIP file containing multiple CSV files such as:
◦ Names and locations of the Stops
◦ Routes as an array of the stops
◦ Time to arrive and leave etc.
The spec. is maintained by the worldwide community
Available GTFS onTransit.land by Mapzen
http://tracker.geops.ch/

6. Simple license
Any purpose including commercial
use is allowed to encourage
developers

7. GTFS repository is available
Aggregate and archive worldwide GTFS files
◦ Provide API to access the data
http://transitfeeds.com https://transit.land

8. Japan has a long history of a Route Planner
1988-
Eki-spart: World first commercial route planner
1998-
Jordan Route Planner with train schedules

9. Established a system to trade train
schedules commercially
JR train schedule data are NOT open data.
Train Schedule
Aggregator and
Publisher

10. No GTFS Open Data in 2014

11. Bottom up approach for Transit Open
Data
Shinkansen
Intercity Rail
Regional Rail,
Commuter Rail
Intercity Bus
LRT, BRT
Regional Bus/minibus
Speed, Distance,
Price,
No. of passengers
Digital data are commercially available
Data are not digitalized and opened

12. 2014- OpenTrans.it Project
Developed a web-based system for route bus service
to help open data
◦ Target: small route bus operators
Input Schedules on a Web by the operator
Browse on the Web
Store the Data
ZIP
Download GTFS File
Member:
Yasuharu Oishi
Daigo Ikeda
Naoya Sugimoto
Masaki Ito

13. Field Experiment in Shizuoka Prefecture
Published Bus Schedules in GTFS format
◦ Kakegawa, Omaezaki, Susono
Held a hackathon to use GTFS data
Deliver the data to Google

14. Find the bus on the Google Maps
Provides GTFS data to Google
Increase the opportunity to propagate route bus service

15. GTFS Open Data in 2015
Cities in Shizuoka Prefecture
Owning to the OpenTrans.it
project, minibus data in Shimada
and Yaizu cities were published.

16. Advertisement and recruiting
It was the time to spread the idea of
“GTFS Open Data”!
Demonstrate our 1st trial in Shizuoka:
◦ TV and newspaper
◦ Academic conferences of mobility or IT
◦ Industrial symposium of regional
transportation
Finding friends to share the vision

17. Share the Slides
Almost every slides to introduce open data is
available online
Good to catch the person to search open data
related topics

18. Introduce examples in the world
TRANSIT OPEN DATA IN LONDON TRANSIT OPEN DATA IN THE USA
http://qiita.com/niyalist/items/90a26cec132fda04e4b9http://qiita.com/niyalist/items/3a2ff6777955b5e1b7fe

19. Contribute to the industry newspaper
“Tokyo Kotsu Shinbun” is a popular industry newspaper
in taxi and public transportation field.
Article title:
◦ “Let’s spread regional public transport data as open data”
◦ “IT Offers Opportunities to Public Transport: Have a Clear
Vision to Lead the World”
English Translation is available on Medium
https://medium.com/@niyalist

20. Translated “The GTFS Story” into Japanese
“Pioneering Open Data Standards:
The GTFS Story” ( by Bibiana McHugh
@ Trimet, Oregon) is a story when
she start first GTFS Open Data project
with an Google Engineer
The book containing the article is a
textbook of the open government
movement published by a member
of Code for America.
http://qiita.com/niyalist/items/5eef5f9fef7fa1dc6644

21. Organized a Symposium “Transportation Geomedia
Summit” in Feb. 2016
Speakers:
◦ Government Officer
◦ Route Planner Developers
◦ Railway Company
◦ Independent engineer
◦ University researcher

22. Lecture in Nomi City in Jan. 2017

23. GTFS Open Data in early 2017
Nomi City in Ishikawa Prefecture
Minibus data is published in
Jan.2017 on the official web.
Shingu Town in Fukuoka Pref.
Minibus and ferry data are
available since late 2016.
Yamanashi Prefecture
Major Route Bus
Operators(Yamanashi Kotsu
and Fuji Kyuko) opened their
data in Feb. 2017.
Uno Bus in Okayama Prefecture
GTFS and GTFS realtime are available since
2016.
Muroran City in Hokkaido
Official open data with an independent format
are converted to GTFS by the local engineer.
Cities in Shizuoka Prefecture
Owning to the OpenTrans.it
project, minibus data in Shimada
and Yaizu cities were published.

24. Big news:
Japanese Government
Standardized Bus Data Format

25. Bus Data Commission at the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
Japanese government arranged a commission to discuss
effective collection of route bus schedules
◦ Dec. 2016 to March 2017
Chair
◦ Masaki Ito The Univ. of Tokyo
Route Planner Developer
◦ Yoshikuni Inoue (Jorudan)
◦ Koji Sakurai (Ekitan)
◦ Masahiro Shinohara (Navitime Japan)
◦ Naoki Yamamoto (Val Laboratory)
Diagram Making App Developer
◦ Yuichi Ichikawa (Kozo Keikaku)
◦ Kotaro Tanga (Kobo)
Others
◦ Hiroyuki Ito (Community)
◦ Haruo Endo (Nihon Bus Association)
◦ Masakiro Bessyo (Council of Open Data for Public Transportation)

26. Discussion by the engineers of transportation
data in several route planner companies
These engineers usually don’t
communicate because they are
competitor
Had a long discussion in order to
standardize the route bus data

27. Released “Japanese Standard Route Bus Format”,
100% compatible to GTFS in March 2017
GTFS plus some additional element
specialized to Japanese route bus service
◦ Perfect compatibility to GTFS
Published a manual of the data to help
developers and route bus operators

28. Published 51pages manual of GTFS from
the Japanese government in March 2017

29. Prefectures and cities aiming to start GTFS open
data in 2017
Fukui Prefecture
Joining “Urban Data
Challenge” Project in the U.
of Tokyo to start open data.
Okayama Prefecture
Mede a lecture to introduce
GTFS open data with a local
route bus operator.
Aomori Prefecture
Made a lecture of GTFS for
local government officer and
route bus operators in Jul.
Gunma Prefecture
The Prefectural Office is leading
an open data project of the
regional buses.
Kagawa Prefecture
Will make a lecture in October to
introduce GTFS and open data movement.
Toyama Prefecture
Local IT engineers are working
together with prefectural office
to start open data.
Mie Prefecture
Mr. H. Ito is supporting small bus
operators to make GTFS data.

30. GTFS Lecture for Route Bus Operators in
Aomori
Route Bus operators and City officers invited me to Aomori Prefecture

31. Lecture of free bus
timetable maker in Aug.
“Sonosujiya” is free but advanced bus timetable maker
developed since 2015
We will study how to use it to promote open data movement

32. JR has an interest to open data
DB in Germany sometimes hold Hackathon to communicate
developers
JR Joined DB Open Data Hackathon and provided their data to
the participants.
◦ JR East is strong technical connection to DB

33. I was a participant!
Got a prize!

34. State of the GTFS Open Data is changing
Shinkansen
Intercity Rail
Regional Rail,
Commuter Rail
Intercity Bus
LRT, BRT
Regional Bus/minibus
Speed, Distance,
Price,
No. of passengers
@niyalist