How to describe the uncertainty and the mean waiting times in GTFS? #599
Description
Introduce yourself
I am working at Ecov, a french company building carpooling lines (as public transport lines, but vehicles are usual drivers doing their own trip). We are describing our carpooling lines with GTFS files but this standard does not fit completely.
Exemples of our GTFS files :
- M Covoit Lignes+ in Grenoble
- Covoitici Plain de l'Ain near Lyon
- Grand Est (Metz et Reims)
- Héléman near Genève
We have a need for a dedicated route_type (see this issue), but here we have an other question :
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We have a question about the good way to describe the uncertainty of the timetable (as we don't know in advance the drivers timetable).
We usually use the frequency.txt file in order to describe that between 8am and 9am, you will have to wait 15minutes, but routing tools need fixed timetables, and so the frequency.txt file is converted in precise timetables, and the end user will read : "your departure will be at 8:15". We would prefer to say ti the enduser : "At 8am, you will wait about 15 minutes" or "we are 95% sure you be wait less than 15 minutes".
We have looked at the new GTFS fields coming from GTFS flex with mean_waiting_times in booking rules, but french GTFS users are not yet able to use this field in their regular PT tools (this field is specific to their on demand transport tools).
In your point of view, what could be a best practice for this issue?