Agency information

The agency in file agency.txt refers to the agency that operates the transit services or that is known by passengers to be responsible for those services.

You should represent an agency only once in the feed. Avoid splitting an agency into multiple agencies (e.g. representing internal branches) if this split isn't relevant to users. Otherwise, users searching for an agency may have a negative experience.

Agency attributes

The following attributes are defined in file agency.txt:

• agency_url: The agency_url attribute should lead to the web page of the agency or to a page with information about the described transit system. In routing results, agency_name and agency_url are referenced either as "Service run by agency_name" or under “agency info”.
• agency_lang: The agency_lang attribute should be both the primary language used by the transit agency and the language used in the feed. The agency_lang is needed to transliterate the information in the feed and make it available in other languages as well.
• agency_fare_url: The agency_fare_url attribute should lead directly to a web page with fare information, and will be linked under “Ticket information”.
• agency_phone: The agency_phone attribute should provide a single phone number for customer information. Agency_phone is displayed under “agency info” and is used within notifications for services that require users to call the agency to arrange pickup or drop off at a specific stop.

Time zone and Daylight Saving Time (DST)

NOTE: Refer to agency_timezone: time zone and Daylight Saving Time (DST) for information on correctly setting agency time.

Examples

1. Bus services are run by several small bus agencies. But there is one big agency that is responsible for scheduling and ticketing and from a user’s perspective responsible for the bus services.The one big agency should be defined as agency within the feed. Even if the data is split internally by different small bus operators there should only be one agency defined in the feed.

2. The feed provider runs the ticketing portal, but there are different agencies that actually operate the services and are known by users to be responsible. The agencies actually operating the services should be defined as agencies within the feed.