Bluefield Area Transit’s GTFS Success

Agencies big and small face the same challenges

Transit agencies, regardless of size, share the same mission: to deliver reliable service where the community needs it, at times that work best for riders. But meeting that mission depends on ensuring riders have access to clear, accurate, and up-to-date information.

That’s often easier said than done. In a world where people expect instant, targeted information, keeping route maps and timetables current is a constant challenge, especially for agencies with limited staff or technical resources. Even small service changes can trigger a chain reaction: manual edits, coordination with a web administrator, and time-consuming updates to both tables and maps.

For Bluefield Area Transit (BAT), this was a familiar problem. The agency wanted a way to keep riders informed without turning every route adjustment into a website project.

Harnessing control with National RTAP’s GTFS Builder

BAT’s first step was taking ownership of their transit data. With support from National RTAP’s GTFS Builder, BAT could create and maintain a complete GTFS feed with minimal hardware and software requirements, and at no cost. Because the tool is Excel-based, it felt familiar and approachable for staff, even those without technical backgrounds.

“Working in the National RTAP Builder was very user friendly and the assistance from the RTAP teams was responsive and helpful,” said Jacob Howard, IT Manager at Bluefield Area Transit. “There were some learning curves at the beginning, but emailing their support team and jumping on meetings with them made the process much smoother.”

While learning GTFS takes time, National RTAP support helped BAT build confidence quickly. “Understanding what data is needed and how it is implemented will be a process,” Howard added, “but with RTAP support it should become easier quite quickly.”

One source of truth. Fewer manual tasks. Always up to date.

Once BAT had a complete GTFS feed and the ability to maintain it internally, they were ready to put it to work. With a few simple code snippets placed on their network and route pages, polished, ADA-accessible timetables and interactive maps appeared across BAT’s website, all in a few days.

Ride Guide made this possible by using GTFS as BAT’s single source of truth. When BAT updates their GTFS feed, those changes automatically flow through to the maps and timetables displayed on their website. That means route additions, schedule adjustments, and temporary deviations can be communicated quickly and accurately, without recreating maps or rewriting schedules every time.

John Reeves, General Manager at Bluefield Area Transit put it plainly: “Most transit managers don’t have the staff to devote to GTFS upkeep. Anything to make their life easier is a bonus.”

He explained that at many agencies, route maps and timetables are a constant source of stress whenever service changes occur. “Route maps and timetables are always in the back of their minds any time a route is added or changed,” he said. “Having one place to update this data is a huge benefit.”

Before Ride Guide, even small changes required a coordinated, multi-step process. “Previously any small change meant getting the person who maintains the website involved and changing the tables and maybe even creating a new map, which can be very time-consuming,” Reeves said.

Now, BAT can simply update their data and let the website reflect those changes automatically. “Ride Guide is able to take our GTFS data and provide a tool that will automatically show these changes that we can insert into our website or wherever we see fit,” Reeves explained.

This has made it much easier to keep the public informed during disruptions and detours. “In an effort to always keep the public up to date with any route deviations, such as road closures, we can easily update the data knowing our websites, timetables and maps will automatically change to reflect these updates,” Reeves said. “This new process has greatly reduced the time and effort previously spent on this task.”

The result is a reduction in staff workload, and a much higher level of confidence that riders are always seeing accurate, accessible information.

Implementation: Fast, flexible, and collaborative

Even with time zone differences, BAT found the Ride Guide team responsive and flexible. “Ride Guide support was very responsive to any questions we had,” Reeves said. “When the tools needed information that was not currently in our GTFS database, they allowed me the freedom to use the methods I saw fit and that worked best for us to generate the requested data.”

Results

By putting GTFS at the center of their technology stack and using Ride Guide maps and timetables for passenger information, Bluefield Area Transit significantly reduced the time and effort required to maintain their website.

Staff are no longer burdened with repetitive manual updates and coordination across teams. Instead, they can focus on higher-value work, while riders benefit from clearer, more reliable, and more accessible transit information.

What’s coming next in Bluefield?

In the coming months, Ride Guide and BAT will add real-time alerts, including location-based alerts on their interactive maps. Riders will also be able to view demand response zones, deviation areas, and trailheads accessible by transit, improving network transparency and helping riders explore more opportunities with public transit.