Now that you’ve specified how you'll submit your data, it’s time to test your Realtime feed to make sure it’s ready to be published to your users.
- First, test your feed in the preview staging environment and in the Transit Data Sharing Portal.
- Then, the Google team will conduct a quality review of your feed prior to launch.
Data from your preview feed isn't visible to the public.
Only users who can access your Transit Data Sharing Portal account will be able to access your preview feed and view your preview data on Google Maps.
If necessary, you can give users preview access to allow people to view your preview data without giving them edit access to your data in the Transit Data Sharing Portal.
Tests for your preview data
Before your feed can be approved for launch, you are responsible for performing the following tests to ensure the quality of your feed and your data.
- Verify your data: Review the details of your Realtime feeds in the Transit Data Sharing Portal to identify any issues with your feeds.
- Check Google Maps: Check Google Maps to make sure your preview Realtime data is available.
- Run a field study: Send people into the field to verify actual arrival times and delays correspond to arrival times and delays as listed in your Realtime feed.
The first step in testing your feed is to review your Realtime feed reports in the Transit Data Sharing Portal and resolve any data quality issues. This is the most important and frequently the most time-consuming step in the testing and launch process.
- In the Transit Data Sharing Portal, click Data.
- On the page that opens, click Realtime.
- In the table, click View (in the Reports column) for the feed you need to test.
- Select the most recent date range, the click View issue.
- In the report that opens, verify all available feed data. Make sure to note any issues with your feed, then fix all of the issues identified.
If you submit real-time transit data using the push method, you can manually upload data files for testing. Please note that this option is only available during testing.
Once you've addressed all feed issues, the next step is to ensure that your preview feed integrates well with Google Maps.
To test your preview:
- Sign in with a Google account that has access to your Transit Data Sharing Portal account.
- Visit http://maps.google.com
- Enter an address within your transit area.
- In the search box, click the Directions button
.
- Enter a second address or click a point on the map.
- Click the Transit icon at the top of the search box.
If the route you select matches update IDs in your GTFS Realtime feed, you’ll see annotations like service alerts and trip updates.
Once you’ve verified your data and confirmed that your preview feed appears on Google Maps, the last step is to ensure that your buses and trains arrive when your feed says they will. Send people to transit stops to verify that arrivals and delays reflect corresponding data shown in your Realtime feed.
If you find issues with your feed you don’t know how to resolve, contact us.
Google’s testing process
In addition to the testing that you perform, Google will perform a thorough quality review of your Realtime feed before it goes live. This allows you to fix any launch-blocking issues and ensure the highest possible quality for your data feed. To request a review, contact us.
After we've finished testing, we'll let you know of any issues that were found. Any issues that were discovered must be fixed before your feed can go live.