The main goal of the RetroRide project is to create General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) files based on the transit operations in the past for the purposes of historical preservation and for comparative purposes (to today's services). RetroRide uses public timetables and other methods to obtain schedule data from the era being evaluated. If we are unable to obtain authentic schedule data for the time period we are evaluating, we may use the times from future versions of the line or in some cases, we may simulate the data based on available information. The RetroRide Project has been seeking this information from collectors and other transit enthusiasts and some of you have responded and we thank you.
Today, I am happy to announce that the RetroRide Project has been able to acquire a substantial number of Southern California Rapid Transit District schedules from the core period of 1977 to 1979 and the years surrounding. This adds over 200 public timetables to the RetroRide collection. Because of this, we are now able to eventually construct a 1977-1979 era GTFS file for the SCRTD where nearly 88% of all of the lines will have authentic data from 1977 to 1979.
To implement the data from these schedules, we will be starting a RetroRide Phase 3 in a manner different than what we originally intended. Priority will be given to lines not currently in RetroRide and then eventually, we will be converting the "future dated" schedules to "Authentic". A small number of lines will go in with future dated schedules.
Within the project, there will be four sub-phases:
3A - Lines that are not currently in RetroRide as well as routes currently in as simulations. (42 lines)
3B - Lines that are currently in RetroRide with "future dated" schedule data where there will be minimal work above and beyond entering the schedule data in order to implement the authentic schedule. (56 lines)
3C - Lines that are currently in RetroRide with "future dated" schedule data but may need some more significant modification to the route and stop data in order to achieve the authentic route. This is normally caused by route changes between the authentic date and the future-dated schedule date. (12 lines)
3D - Lines with schedule data between 1975 and 1980 which had been considered as "authentic" in the past being converted to schedule data from between 1977-1979. (2 lines)
The RetroRide project takes place on a "time available" basis and therefore this project will take place throughout 2018. This puts on hold at this time, any future work on the RetroRide 1959 project. In that project, we have already completed full GTFS data for the rail lines (J, P, R, S, V, 36, 37 and 38).
The two lines that we can't include in the Phase 3 RetroRide 79 implementation are Lines 305 (Huntington Park-Watts-Main St & Imperial Hwy) and 306 (Manchester & Central-Wilmington Ave-Compton) due to the fact that we have no information on these lines. If anyone has schedules for lines 305 and/or 306 from 1977 through 1979, please let us know so we can get these in there.
It's going to be a busy year on the RetroRide LA 1979 Project. We thank you for your support and hope you enjoy using the trip planner. Once Phase 3 is completed, we will release open GTFS data.
RetroRide79 Phase 3 implementation (PDF, 201KB)