A timing point, time point or timepoint is a
public transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
that a vehicle tries to reach at a scheduled time.
A vehicle is not supposed to pass a timepoint until the schedule time has arrived. These stops are contrasted with all other stops on a scheduled route, for which the
transit agency
A transit district or transit authority is a government agency or a public-benefit corporation created for the purpose of providing public transportation within a specific region.
A transit district may operate bus, rail or other types of tra ...
does not explicitly schedule an arrival/departure time. These other stops occur between timepoint stops, so their scheduled times are implicitly between those of the timepoints though not explicitly defined. At minimum, it allows regular passengers to estimate when a bus would get to a stop before or after a timepoint.
The creation of digital schedules, and real-time geo-located apps has somewhat complicated the situation for agencies operating with timepoints. These apps usually ingest
GTFS
GTFS, which stands for General Transit Feed Specification or (originally) Google Transit Feed Specification, defines a common format for public transportation schedules and associated geographic information. GTFS contains only static or schedul ...
data, a widely used schedule data format, which often included times for every single stop on a route. Agencies may interpolate between their timepoints, but this may not reflect a realistic expectation of when a vehicle should arrive, and the GTFS specification cautions against this practice.
References
Bus terminology
Scheduling (transportation)
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