Table 2 PT travel modes as defined by the GTFS standard.

From: A collection of public transport network data sets for 25 cities

Mode tag

route_type

Description

Max. speed (km/h)

tram

0

Tram, Streetcar, Light rail. Any light rail or street level system within a metropolitan area.

100

subway

1

Subway, Metro. Any underground rail system within a metropolitan area.

150

rail

2

Rail. Used for intercity or long-distance travel.

300

bus

3

Bus. Used for short- and long-distance bus routes.

100

ferry

4

Ferry. Used for short- and long-distance boat service.

80

cablecar

5

Cable car. Used for street-level cable cars where the cable runs beneath the car.

50

gondola

6

Gondola, Suspended cable car. Typically used for aerial cable cars where the car is suspended from the cable.

50

funicular

7

Funicular. Any rail system designed for steep inclines.

50

  1. The data for “route_type” and “Description” columns are copied from the “General Transit Feed Specification Reference” (https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference/) by Google LLC, licensed under CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). The column “Mode tag” tells the tag used for different PT modes when producing single-mode network extracts. The column “Max. speed” tells the speed limit that we use to flag PT trips, where the average speed of trip distances is unrealistic.
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