The Scottish Bus Open Data Consultation
6D Data standards - bus stop information
Effective journey planning requires detailed information on the location and accessibility of bus stops. There is currently a single standard for this information, used by local authorities or a body appointed to undertake this function for them. This is known as the NaPTAN data format required for submitting information into the NaPTAN database (currently NaPTAN 2.5).
NaPTAN is the UK National Public Transport Access Nodes dataset. It describes the precise location of stops, stations and ports for all public transport modes. NaPTAN is the foundation of most scheduling and journey planning systems. NaPTAN works alongside a second dataset, the National Public Transport Gazetteer (NPTG) which is a topographic database of all cities, towns and settlements in the UK, providing a frame of reference for the NaPTAN database
Local authorities input and maintain this stop data for bus stops and stations. The Department for Transport maintains other stop types centrally (Metro, ferry ports, rail stations etc). In Scotland, Local Authorities maintain this data, however some authorities have arrangements with other bodies, for example, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) manages this data for the authorities within its boundaries. Traveline Scotland directly manages the NaPTAN for Western Isles and the Shetland Islands.
Because there is no statutory requirement to keep NaPTAN data up to date, it relies on the resourcing and prioritisation of the work at authority level, and therefore, quality across Scotland is variable.
It appears sensible to use the NaPTAN standard for bus stop data in Scotland. We therefore propose to place a statutory requirement on local authorities to maintain the data relevant to bus services in a format which supports the NaPTAN and NPTG datasets. In England, where this information is already mandatory, the data must be submitted in XML format, may not be a zipped file, and must be a file size of less than 128MB, however there are no restrictions on naming conventions.