gtfs-visualizations
Generates beautiful visualizations and heatmaps from public transit GTFS data to show route frequency and network patterns.
What is gtfs-visualizations?
GTFS Visualizations is an open-source tool that creates visual heatmaps from GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) data. It processes public transit schedules and geographic information to generate maps where route frequency is represented by line thickness and opacity, making it easy to see which transit corridors are most active. The tool outputs high-quality images and PDFs suitable for analysis, presentations, or artistic posters.
Transportation planners, data visualization enthusiasts, urban researchers, and open data advocates who work with public transit datasets and want to create insightful visual representations of network activity.
It provides a straightforward, code-based workflow to turn raw GTFS feeds into beautiful, informative maps without requiring complex GIS software. Its unique logarithmic scaling for trip frequency and support for multi-modal color coding offer clear insights into transit network usage patterns.
Overview
Visualizing GTFS data.
Use Cases
Best For
- Creating visual transit network heatmaps for urban planning reports
- Generating artistic posters from public transportation data
- Comparing route frequency across different cities or transit modes
- Analyzing the intensity of public transport usage in specific corridors
- Teaching data visualization concepts using real-world open transit data
- Producing high-resolution maps for presentations or publications
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring real-time or interactive transit visualizations
- Processing very large GTFS datasets due to RAM limitations
- Teams needing actively maintained software with modern compatibility
- Users seeking a simple, GUI-based tool without command-line setup
Pros & Cons
Pros
Uses logarithmic scaling of trip counts to draw routes with thickness and opacity proportional to usage, clearly highlighting busy transit corridors as shown in the gallery examples.
Assigns distinct colors to transit types like tram, subway, and bus based on hardcoded values, enabling clear visual differentiation in output maps.
Generates PNG and PDF files specifically mentioned as suitable for large-format A0 posters, providing flexibility for digital and print use.
Supports any city by placing GTFS data in a folder structure and editing configuration files, allowing visualizations for diverse transit networks as per the README instructions.
Cons
The project is explicitly stated as no longer actively maintained, with known issues in Processing 3.x, limiting future compatibility and bug fixes.
The GTFS parser loads entire datasets into memory, causing performance problems or failures with large feeds if insufficient RAM is available, as admitted in the README.
Requires installing node.js, Processing 2.2.1, running make commands, and editing source files like processing.pde, which can be cumbersome and error-prone for users.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
TransitFlowAnimating scheduled transit trips using the Transitland API and Processing
gtfspy-webvizInteractive tools for GTFS data visualization and analysis
GTFS VizA project renders at scale GTFS files on the client side only without backend
Toronto Transit ExplorerThe Toronto Transit Explorer app visualizes transit, biking and walking accessibility across the city of Toronto.
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