GTFSOffline

Description

GTFSOffline is a transit app for Android >= 4.0, originally forked from GRTransit and substantially modified (supporting multiple transit agencies, with stripped-down privacy centric features).

Because of the standardization of the GTFS feed format, many transit initiatives across the country are releasing open routes in GTFS format. This app allows you to download a GTFS zip, process it, put it on your phone, and get access to the stops nearest you, even with multiple bus systems.

Features

• Flexibility to load as many or as few databases as you want
• 100% completely offline operation
• Permissions required: only GPS coarse/fine, Write External Storage (to read Downloads folder for downloaded databases)
• Open source GPLv3 Licensed

Guide (Process DB on Linux)

• Install from the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wbrenna.gtfsoffline.

• Install the apk found in GTFSOffline/bin/GTFSOffline.apk as per http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-applications-without-the-market/.

You will need to find the GTFS zip files for the transit agenc[y,ies] you use. Hopefully these are distributed online. On your desktop computer, unzip these files into their own folders in the data/ directory of this repository (after cloning it). For each folder, do something like:

cd path-to-gtfsoffline/data/
./mksql3db.sh aDBName.db aGTFSFolder/*.txt

This command will take a while to run - it is sorting the text files, stripping out unnecessary bits, and building them into nicely indexed SQLite databases.

When this is done, simply transfer the databases to your phone, into the folder

/sdcard/Android/data/com.wbrenna.gtfsoffline/files/

The app will detect the files (sometimes the phone needs to be restarted - an AOSP bug, not mine) and you can select them from the Settings menu. The other settings should be fairly self explanatory!

Alternatively, you can GZip the file and put it on a server, Google Drive, etc., and download it to the phone's Downloads folder, then run Scan Downloads Folder from within the app (it will gunzip the *.db.gz database and move it to the appropriate folder).

Then, select the databases you wish to activate in the Settings menu.

If the app slows down considerably, you might try reducing the time it looks ahead for buses, the number of buses at each stop, and/or the number of stops. You could also reduce the number of databases used. In addition, the Search Window preference will only search within an x-kilometer square. Decreasing this will dramatically speed up the app. When it is set to zero, it will search far and wide for buses!

You also must be sure to update your database regularly. Often a stale database will clog up the app, as it will search through every entry trying to find one that is within the time range. When a database expires, the app should notify you.

TODO

• The database handling could be much faster.