Improve documentation on how to create a data bundle and set up a new server with GTFS-RT data

[aaronbrethorst]

• Let's use GoTriangle as our example: https://gotriangle.org
• Static GTFS: https://www.transit.land/feeds/f-dnr-tta~regionalbus~nc~us
• GTFS-RT feeds are listed here: https://www.transit.land/feeds/f-dnr-tta~regionalbus~nc~us~rt

First, update the static data information and rebuild your data bundle: https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules?tab=readme-ov-file#static-data-changes

Be really sure to update the time zone in you docker_compose.yml file. You will want to make sure it is set to America/New_York

Second, update the realtime information: https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules?tab=readme-ov-file#realtime-data-changes

You'll need to update your onebusaway-transit-data-federation-webapp-data-sources.xml with the .pb URLs available from transit.land, but don't include the authentication since these feeds don't seem to require it.

Acceptance Criteria

• Update the README with/for any missing/incomplete/confusing information
• Make sure that the GoTriangle data works properly with OBA (both static and realtime)
• Add documentation on all of the steps that need to be done to validate that the server works correctly
• Create follow-up issues for any problems you run into (and hopefully tackle them!)

[cdugan]

Hey Aaron please assign this to me!

[cdugan]

I had some time to work on this today, so here are the updates.

Firstly, I loaded the GoTriangle static and real-time GTFS data into OBA, and it seems to build and compile properly. I can view the current time info, agency and route info, and most of the stop info. However, I'm pretty sure that the stop info is NOT showing real-time data. It's a bit confusing because the distanceFromStop field loads successfully and even gets updated (decreases) if I refresh the page, which makes it seem like real-time works OK. However, the predictedArrivalTime and predictedDepartureTime fields are both 0, which according to the API readme means that real-time info was not available. Therefore, I think the real-time info is likely not being properly loaded, or else GoTriangle isn't providing all of this data.
The below screenshots are using this URL which gets arrivals and departure information for stop 1733. (You must build the OBA docker container and load in GoTriangle GTFS data)

http://localhost:8080/onebusaway-api-webapp/api/where/arrivals-and-departures-for-stop/f42c368f-0d16-403f-9c7c-493c9beb84ef_1733.json?key=test

Furthermore, I have a strange bug where sometimes the arrivalsAndDepartures field is completely not populated, like below. This seems to happen intermittently, for example, I will load in the data and open up the URL listed above to see details for stop 1733. It will load as above. I'll then refresh it a few times and suddenly it will appear like the screenshot below. However if I wait a few minutes and refresh again, it may be restored to the above screenshot. I'm not sure if this could be related to my container having issues (not enough resources or going to sleep etc.) or if it's related to the GTFS feed.

Summary - I have two problems:

1. realtime info seems to not properly load because predictedArrivalTime and predictedDepartureTime are not populated when getting stop arrival/departure details. See 1st screenshot and attached JSON output.
2. The arrivalsAndDepartures field intermittently doesn't load at all. See 2nd screenshot.

OBA_JSON_output.txt

[cdugan]

Today I was able to connect my android phone to my OBA server using the OBA app. I did this by following Aaron's instructions below. For me, I had to use the ngrok method to get it to work. However, it doesn't fully work. However, this is just more evidence of the bug I'm seeing above. Nonetheless, it is nice to see something working at least a little! See the screenshots below.

Below, you can see that many of the stops load.

However, when I tap on a stop to view more information, it only loads for a few seconds before the app just crashes. The image below shows what it looks like just before crashing. I tried tapping on multiple stops but all of them had the same problem.

Below is the expected way a stop should display information when you tap on it. This is from the Puget Sound server that is running correctly.

Aaron's instructions:

If you are using the app on your phone, just make sure your laptop and phone are on the same network and use http://:8080/onebusaway-api-webapp as your custom region's URL. If that doesn't work for whatever reason, try installing ngrok and using that to publicly expose port 8080 to the internet. And then connect to the public IP exposed by ngrok, plus the onebusaway-api-webapp path

I had to use the ngrok method, and I found the custom API URL setting under Settings->Advanced->OneBusAway API Server.