The Department for Transport through the Bus Services Act 2017 requires requires bus operators and/or local transport authorities to openly publish information about bus routes and timetables, stopping places, fares and tickets, location information and more broadly the operation of bus services.
In July 2020 the regulation to enable the DfT to mandate the provision of data was made:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/749/contents/made
We have produced a quick guide to the dates and data formats required in the regulation:
https://www.rtig.org.uk/system/files/documents/RTIGT040-2.0%20BODS%20SI%20Dates%20and%20Formats.pdf
The DfT have produced an implementation guide to support the statutory instrument:
The open data service is accessed online:
https://www.bus-data.dft.gov.uk/
Routes and Timetables
These need to be published in TransXChange format.
The schema documentation for TransXChange can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transxchange-downloads-and-schema
Version 1.1.A is the latest version of the profile documentation and can be obtained from here:
UK Public Transport Information Profile v1.1.A
Earlier versions of the profile can be found on the profile archive page.
The summary PowerPoint for the profile is here:
TransXChange: Public Transport Information Profile
Fares
Fares data is published in NeTEx format.
The details of this including profile documentation is available:
http://netex.uk/farexchange/downloads.htm
The schema is available on GITHub:
https://github.com/NeTEx-CEN/NeTEx
The formal NeTEx documentation is CEN copyright and available in the UK from BSI as PD CEN/TS 16614
Location Data
This will need to be published in SIRI VM format.
The profile that bus operators must use when publishing location data via the Bus Open Data Service under the SIRI-VM standard is available online:
The Department for Transport has developed a SIRI VM profile to support BODS.
The aim of this profile is to specify a consistent use of elements and a consistent way of using SIRI VM that will be used within BODS and which will lead to a higher quality data set and, at the same time, lower the barriers to entry by users new to SIRI.
Following a period of review at the end of 2021 v1 of the document is now available.
The document and background material is available from the SIRI VM profile page.
The SIRI schema is available on GITHub:
https://github.com/SIRI-CEN/SIRI
The formal SIRI documentation is CEN copyright and available in the UK from BSI as BS EN 15531