Progress update: what's actually in the data, and what's missing

A quick update on where this stands.

I found that someone had already started this work back in 2022, a project called Jungle Bus had generated a GTFS feed for Kochi's buses and ferries by pulling data out of OpenStreetMap. It covers 473 routes, stops, and timetables across city buses, mofussil (intercity) buses, ordinary buses, and the Kochi city boat service. It's a solid piece of work. It also looks like it got dropped after that one release and never updated since.

I spent the last stretch going through it properly to understand what's there and what isn't.

What's there

The core of it is in good shape. I ran it through the same validator Google uses to check GTFS feeds before they go live on Maps, and it came back clean: no structural errors. Every route has a real path traced on the map, every stop has a name and coordinates, and the timetables are internally consistent. For something built by one person pulling data out of OpenStreetMap, that's a solid foundation to build on.

What's missing

Two things stood out.

First, none of the 473 routes have a route number. You can see "North Paravur to High Court via Vypin," but there's no short code like "Route 12" the way Delhi or Bangalore buses work. I dug into why, and it's not an oversight in the data. Kerala's buses mostly don't have official route numbers to begin with. A 2019 report I found (linked below) explains that introducing a numbering system requires the state to first redo route rationalisation, which is the process of formally mapping and registering every route. That hasn't been done in about 20 years. An earlier attempt to roll out numbers in Kochi stalled for the same reason. So the data isn't missing a number, there's largely no official number yet to record.

Second, the feed itself is stale. Its schedule data was only ever valid through March 2023. Whatever's actually running today needs to be checked against what's documented here.

Why it was never submitted to Google Maps

I looked into this too, since it seemed like a natural next step for the original project. Technically, the feed would pass Google's basic requirements with some cleanup. But Google only accepts these feeds from an actual transit authority, or from someone with that authority's documented sign-off. A community project built from OpenStreetMap doesn't have that on its own. So this was likely never a technical dead end, it's a step that needs an official relationship with KRTL or the MVD before it can happen at all.

Where things stand with KRTL

I've reached out to KRTL to flag this work and see if there's any existing or in-progress numbering effort I should be building toward instead of around. No response yet. I'll keep this page updated either way.

What's next

A few things I'm weighing:

Whether to propose a provisional numbering scheme of our own, clearly labeled as unofficial, so riders and other apps have something usable in the meantime, the way Kannur did a few years back before any state mandate.

Getting the schedule data checked and refreshed against what's actually running.

Keeping this open rather than quietly building it alone. If there's a transport researcher, an OSM contributor in Kerala, or someone from an operator association who wants to weigh in, I'd rather coordinate than duplicate work.

This stays what it's always been: an independent civic initiative, not an official route-allocation project. Any numbering we propose would be a starting point for discussion, not a replacement for whatever KRTL or MVD eventually formalizes.

Reference: "Needed: Route numbers for buses," CPPR, 2019.