Consume a GTFS-Realtime ServiceAlerts feed for service disruptions
domain: gtfs.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Fetch the Alerts protobuf feed endpoint published by the agency
Decode Alert entities using the gtfs-realtime.proto Alert/EntitySelector messages
Read active_period to determine whether an alert is currently in effect versus scheduled for the future
Read informed_entity to determine which agency/route/stop/trip the alert applies to
Surface header_text/description_text (and cause/effect enums) to riders, respecting any multi-language translations provided
Known gotchas
Service Alerts are allowed to be up to about 10 minutes stale per best-practice guidance — don't apply the same ~90-second freshness bar used for TripUpdates/VehiclePositions
An alert with no active_period should be treated as always active; missing this case causes alerts to silently disappear from a UI
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