Other ODbL-compatible GTFS feeds - Canada

Communities Canada
,
1

With the addition into PTNA of the GTFS feeds of Alberta’s two largest urban transit networks, Calgary Transit and ETS, now I’m looking if there are any other ODbL-compatible GTFS datasets that may be worth using for OSM. Currently, there are six licence-compatible GTFS feeds added to PTNA, two from Alberta (ETS, Calgary Transit), one in Manitoba (Winnipeg Transit), two in Quebec (RTC and STLévis) and one in New Brunswick (Codiac Transpo).

It currently looks like there are no GTFS feeds from Ontario transit agencies in PTNA, but that belies the mostly well-done state of transit network mapping there, whether that be in the GTA, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo and anywhere in between. If anyone could find anything compatible with OSM’s licence, that would be appreciated (I can help adding them on individual requests). For BC, I can’t find anything worth adding (both BC Transit and TransLink have fairly restrictive licensing for their GTFS datasets which are noted in OSM Wiki, but it’s possible to have those added if we can get explicit permission), but since transit networks in BC are well mapped, can forget that.

2

For Ontario, one GTFS feed I can find that is compatible with OSM’s licensing is for GO Transit. Metrolinx publishes GO’s GTFS feed under OGL and that’s noted in the wiki. Would have that added to PTNA on a new thread.

I would also like to know if other GTA transit agencies beside GO also have licence-compatible GTFS data too. TTC? Hamilton Street Railway? York Region Transit? MiWay? Brampton Transit? Burlington Transit? Durham Regional Transit?

3

TTC is under OGL-Toronto which is license compatible.

4

Metrolinx’s OGL is named “Open Government Licence - Ontario - Metrolinx” which I understand is legally not the same as all the other “Open Government Licence - <name>” so it would have to also be cleared by OSM Legal Working Group (a formality, but has to be done)

TTC GTFS, on the other hand, is under “Open Government Licence - Toronto” which has been cleared by LWG

5

Now TTC has been added, now taking on the other GTA transit agencies beside TTC and GO.

I have noticed GTFS-related tags on some bus route relations when doing a check for bus routes along Hurontario near Square One in Mississauga. Does MiWay have ODbL-compatible GTFS data too?

6

MiWay looks to be using a custom open data licence. I guess we’d have to ask people who added the GTFS tags.

7

Also try to bring this up with the licence working group if Mississauga’s custom open data licence is compatible with OSM’s. A listing for City of Mississauga open data appears in Canada - OpenStreetMap Wiki but it hasn’t been updated for years; it says incompatible but may no longer be true since the time of writing.

8

So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa’s old license)

That is the reason listed on the wiki.

And the license still has that section in it

If, as a result of your breach of these Terms of Use or use of the Datasets, the City gets sued or is
required to pay someone money, you agree to protect the City and reimburse the City for everything
which you cause the City to suffer.

9

As for those GTFS tags I noticed, those should be removed. Looking from the edit history of 17 Hurontario, it appears those tags were added when MiWay’s routes were converted from PTv1 (when they were first added to the map) to PTv2. Mapper appears to have added those tags as part of the remapping effort, which appears to involve looking up MiWay’s GTFS feed for all possible service variations (which can alternatively be gleaned from route schedules on brochures available on board the buses themselves when doing a ground survey of the route, or can also be found on the agency’s official website).

Moving on now from MiWay, looks like these have promising GTFS data: YRT in York Region and HSR in Hamilton. YRT has an OSM wiki page ( York Region Transit - OpenStreetMap Wiki ), listing all its routes (both regular routes and Viva BRT routes); a section on GTFS data can be added there (York Region has a very compatible custom licence). HSR now has an OSM Wiki page, with some routes but no linked relations, and have just added a link to their GTFS (the City of Hamilton publishes open data under a compatible custom licence since around 2024).

10

As for MiWay again, I just recently noticed its feed is listed on List of GTFS feeds - OpenStreetMap Wiki . It may be worth asking if the user who added the GTFS-related tags did get explicit permission from the City or Mississauga to use MiWay’s GTFS data for OSM (given their existing open data licence).

11

It’s unfortunate that we have tens or hundreds of licenses similar in concept but slightly different from each other. It’s why I’ve given up on open data in Canada.

12

It’s over a week since last post, The YRT and HSR networks are now in PTNA, but their associated GTFS hasn’t been included there yet. I already have a link to the GTFS data on the HSR OSM wiki page.

Going on, I just came upon the Exo commuter rail and bus networks in Greater Montréal following one thread about a proposed remapping of several bus routes in the Laurentides area. Exo publishes its GTFS data under a CC-BY licence, but it would require a waiver before its data can be integrated into OSM. The GTFS for the two existing Quebec public transit networks with PTNA (RTC of Quebec City and STLévis) are similarly licensed with Creative Commons licences too, and their data have been added to OSM thanks to efforts to obtain permission by @wolfy1339.

13

It seems there is already a waiver in place

14

Here’s the associated thread regarding Exo-Laurentides bus network proposed remapping: Exo bus changes in the Laurentides (Quebec) .

1 Like
15

I was waiting for the “waiver” topic being clarified.
For the integration, I usually need

  • the URL of their website - OK!
  • the URL of the GTFS feed
  • the URL of their “terms of use”
  • the URL of the “waiver”, if this is needed

For

What about “EXO” and “MiWay”

Regarding “registration”: I leave it up to the local community to “register”. For AT and SE, they provided me the necessary information from the registration procedure to download the GTFS data (API-Key, Token, username, password, … what ever is requested, the absolute minimum).
The API-Key, Token, … is stored on the PTNA server only and on my local PC.

16

For YRT, the license seems pretty open and okay for OSM usage

  • There’s no attribution required, though it is encouraged.
  • Data is provided as-is
  • Data can be used for commercial purposes

Does this direct URL work?
https://www.yrt.ca/google/google_transit.zip

EXO
They split their GTFS feed by sectors for busses and one for the trains, so there is more than one

https://exo.quebec/en/about/open-data
Licensed under CC-BY 4.0
There is already a waiver on file, see my comment above.

MiWay

Licensed under a custom license that isn’t very open. They pass on any liability to the user
http://www5.mississauga.ca/research_catalogue/CityofMississauga_TermsofUse.pdf

17

Thanks,

  • YRT works fine
  • MiWay works fine
  • EXO
    • works on my local PC in Germany
    • but not on the PTNA server (located in Finland), I get “timeout”
    • I see this “Geo blocking” also for some other feed sources,
      maybe they are not aware of that and are willing to open their Firewall?

I’m using

  • curl -sI ... to read the “last-modified:” HTTP header (get the release_date)
  • wget --no-verbose --read-timeout=60 --user-agent "PTNA script on https://ptna.openstreetmap.de" ... to download the data

but can also implement individual handling.

18

Just to note, MiWay is not currently using a compatible license.

Indemnity

If, as a result of your breach of these Terms of Use or use of the Datasets, the City gets sued or is
required to pay someone money, you agree to protect the City and reimburse the City for everything
which you cause the City to suffer. This means that you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless
the City Parties from any and all liabilities, demand, litigation, injury, losses, damages and costs
(including taxes) and all related legal costs and expenses, suffered by the City Parties, incurred in
connection with any claim arising from: (i) any breach by you of these Terms of Use; (ii) any breach,
infringement, misappropriation or misuse of any third party intellectual property right resulting from
your modification, revision or customization of the Datasets; and (iii) any malicious, fraudulent
(including fraudulent misrepresentation) or criminal conduct (whether by act or omission) by you. You
agree to cooperate fully in the defence of any such claim. The City reserves the right to assume, at its
own expense, the exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by
you. You agree not to settle any matter without the written consent of the City.
Cancellation for Non‐Compliance
The City may, in its sole discretion, cancel or suspend your access to, and the license grante

19

For HSR’s GTFS, here’s the link: HSR Transit Feed. The City of Hamilton now uses a compatible custom licence from around 2024.

20

This GTFS is protected by CloudFlare, no chance to include that into PTNA using a script

curl -sI https://opendata.hamilton.ca/GTFS-Static/google_transit.zip
HTTP/2 522 
date: Sat, 08 Nov 2025 12:11:59 GMT
content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
content-length: 15
cache-control: private, max-age=0, no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT
referrer-policy: same-origin
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
server: cloudflare
cf-ray: 99b4f9699b33feb1-AMS