Transit is a public transportation planning tool that combines the latest agency data with the power of Google Maps. It combines transit stop, route, schedule, and fare information to make planning trips quick and easy for users.
Most public transit agencies can use Google Transit as long as they meet a few basic requirements.
Participation requirements
Google Transit asks partners to meet certain requirements to keep a high standard for user experiences.
To qualify for participation, your transit agency must:
- Provide a publicly-accessible service
- Operate on fixed routes and schedules
- Allow passengers to purchase tickets on board, at the station, or at the boarding point
Agents and data aggregators qualify if they represent or produce transit feeds for a transit agency that meets those requirements.
Aggregators will be asked to provide proof of endorsement from local transit agencies if they are submitting data in an area where we already have coverage.
To get started with Google Transit, contact us.
Important: Google Transit doesn’t approve feeds for services that fall outside of a scheduled, routed public transit system. These kinds of services include bicycle paths, car rentals, bikeshare programs, campus shuttles, and taxis. Long-distance bus services are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Content requirements
Once your participation is accepted, the Google Transit team requests the following information from you:
Static data (required)
Static data is information that isn’t frequently changed, such as:
- Locations and details of transit stops
- Public transport lines and routes
Your content must follow the general transit feed specification (GTFS) format defined at g.co/transitfeed.
Google Transit participating partners must make sure that service covers at least 4 weeks from and including the data that’s made available to Google Transit.
Realtime data (optional)
Realtime data is information that can change moment-to-moment, such as:
- Trip updates
- Service alerts
- Vehicle positions
Make sure your content follows the GTFS-Realtime format defined at g.co/transitfeed.
Important: When providing Realtime trip updates and vehicle position data, make sure the updates are available to Google Transit within 15 seconds of updating.
Share your transit information on Google Maps
After you confirm your eligibility, follow these steps to share your transit information on Google Maps:
- Open your Transit partner dashboard. Learn more about accessing your Transit partner dashboard.
- Create your feed. Learn more about feeds.
- Publish your GTFS feed. Learn how to publish your GTFS feed.
- Review your feed. Learn about reviewing your feed and validation errors.
- Test using private preview. Learn how to test your feed with private preview.
- Launch your feed. Learn about feed launches.
Share your feed with MobilityDatabase.org
Google partners closely with MobilityDatabase.org to improve data transparency and quality. Their platform aspires to become a sustainable, central hub for global mobility data. To help achieve this, we highly recommend you Sign up and contribute to their open source repository.