Common use of Data Specifications Clause in Contracts

Data Specifications. Improving the data quality is important to enhance the today’s transit data best practices, but improvement to the underlying data specifications can expand what is possible. These improvements could include the capability to describe stop and station amenities, represent planned and unplanned service changes, integrate fare schedules and payment options, and provide schedule and/or real-time information for on-demand transit services (TransitCenter, 2018). Describing the station amenities benefit especially older adults and disabled people. Currently, transit agencies are working on different aspects of these problems to show the real situation of the bus stations. For instance, NYC Transit offers a real-time feed describing elevator status, but it is not yet integrated with GTFS (TransitCenter. 2018). Another important service the transit providers and application developers are working is to provide accurate information about service changes and detours. Schedules could be updated with the recent changes which are going to be better that printed announcements, the website, or social media. Application developers can assist in this effort. For instance, Transit App applies MTA New York City Transit (NYC Transit) service changes using a partially automated review of published changes, with human oversight (TransitCenter, 2018). The GTFS fare model is limited because describes only single-trip zone and route-based fares with transfers, but not regional transit fares, pass products, and other pricing schedules such as time-of day and distance-based fares. Meaning that every fare application needs a specific programming code and the third-party trip planner software often have a fare information deficiency. This situation prevents the customer from having a smooth transaction when purchasing a transit ticket because of the lack of a standardized interface for transit trip planners and third-party applications with a ticketing and fare payment systems. There are at least two possible avenues that can be used for users and application interoperability (TransitCenter, 2018):