Tim Sookram   •   over 8 years ago

Universal unique IDs for subway stations

It would be great if there was one ID per station (and stop) that was available in each data set.
For example, in the elevator status, the station is "125TH ST STATION" and it belongs to train number "A/B/C/D." In Station entrances, it is "125th St" and has four route_ids A,B,C,D. In GTFS, it's "125 St" and the stop ID is "A15."

The naming isn't consistent (sometimes "th", sometimes "station", sometimes all caps), but that would be ok if there was an unambiguous identifier for the station.

This is especially important since so many stations share names. This is one of four stations called 125 St. A unique ID would make all this information easier to use together.

• 3 comments
• 

  Serena Pietruszka Manager   •   over 8 years ago

  Hi subwayexpert,

  That's a great suggestion. Please post it on the MTA Developers forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mtadeveloperresources.

  Best,
  Serena

• 

  Alex Perl   •   over 8 years ago

  Hi Tim - this wouldn't be possible as GTFS spec allows for stops to used by other train lines, consider scenario of re-routed trains. For more info check: https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference

  Best regards,
  -Alex

• 

  Tim Sookram   •   over 8 years ago

  Maybe you misunderstand. It's far from impossible; e.g. numerical station IDs are used in the weekender site.

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