The Bus Services Act 2017 includes a requirement for all operators of standard scheduled services in England to publish timetable, real-time location and ticketing data in an open electronic format.

In January 2020, the Department for Transport launched the Bus Open Data Service (BODS) which acts as the portal for all operators in England (outside of London). Whilst the portal originally accepted timetable data in any version of TransXChange (2.1, 2.4 or 2.5), it will now reject data that is not compliant with the TransXChange 2.4 Bus Open Data profile or does not meet a number of data quality checks. To assist operators in preparing compliant data, we launched TransXChange Studio in early 2022.

The timetable for operator compliance with the Bus Open Data requirements is as follows:

• 31st December 2020 – Operators will be legally obliged to publish route and timetable data using the new PTI profile. Local Transport Authorities will be legally required to maintain bus stop data in the NaPTAN database if they do not already do so.
• 7th January 2021 – Ticketing data for all “simple fare types” must be published in NeTEx format. Real-time bus location data must be published using the SIRI-VM format.
• 7th January 2023 – Ticketing data for “complex fare types” must be published in NeTEx format.

Further details are available at the official DfT Bus Open Data Service page.

In order to define, clarify and provide guidance on the Bus Open Data Service, the DfT established a Bus Open Data Implementation Group and a Bus Open Data Programme Board in summer 2018. Elydium has been actively involved in the Implementation Group since its inception, and is developing tools and services that will support and assist operators and local authorities in creating and managing compliant Bus Open Data.

To find out more about Bus Open Data and how Elydium is assisting operators to create high-quality compliant data, please contact us at busopendata@elydium.co.uk