gtfs-cli 0.2.0

CLI tool to fetch, archive, process and explore GTFS-RT data

gtfs-cli

CLI tool to fetch, process, and explore GTFS transit data — both realtime (GTFS-RT) and static schedules. Follows Unix philosophy: each command does one thing and writes to stdout, composing naturally with tools like curl, unzip, and jq.

Installation

uv tool install gtfs-cli

After installation, the gtfs-cli command is available globally.

Commands

static info

Inspect a static GTFS feed (a folder of .txt files). Shows agency, valid dates, feed age, stop/route/trip counts, route types, service days, and file inventory.

# Download and unzip a feed, then inspect it
curl -L "https://ckan0.cf.opendata.inter.prod-toronto.ca/dataset/7795b45e-e65a-4465-81fc-c36b9dfff169/resource/cfb6b2b8-6191-41e3-bda1-b175c51148cb/download/TTC%20Routes%20and%20Schedules%20Data.zip" -o ttc.zip
unzip ttc.zip -d ttc/
gtfs-cli static info ttc/

# Inspect the current directory
gtfs-cli static info

For all available options, run:

gtfs-cli static info --help

fetch

Fetch a GTFS-RT feed from a URL or local file and output it as JSON.

# Fetch live trip updates
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary"

# Fetch vehicle positions
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/vehicles/position?format=binary"

# Fetch service alerts
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/alerts/all?format=binary"

# Inspect a previously saved .pb file
gtfs-cli fetch trips.pb

Filtering with jq:

# List all active alerts
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/alerts/all?format=binary" | jq '.entity[] | .alert'

# Count entities in a feed
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary" | jq '.entity | length'

# Extract all trip IDs
gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary" \
  | jq '[.entity[].trip_update.trip.trip_id]'

Watch mode — continuously poll a feed and stream NDJSON (one JSON object per line):

# Poll every 30 seconds
gtfs-cli fetch --watch 30 "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary"

# Count entities on each snapshot
gtfs-cli fetch --watch 30 "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary" \
  | jq --unbuffered '.entity | length'

# Save a long-running collection to a file
gtfs-cli fetch --watch 30 "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary" \
  >> snapshots.ndjson

Watch mode handles transient failures gracefully: HTTP and network errors are retried with exponential backoff (1s → 2s → 4s … capped at 60s). Stop with Ctrl+C or SIGTERM.

For all available options, run:

gtfs-cli fetch --help

Development

# Install dependencies
uv sync

# Run a command
uv run gtfs-cli fetch "https://gtfsrt.ttc.ca/trips/update?format=binary"

# Run tests
uv run pytest tests/ -v