Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART)

What this grade measures

The quality of the schedule data this agency publishes for trip-planning apps: whether riders using Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Transit see current, correct, and complete information. It measures the data feed, not service quality or operations.

Progress this period

No newly cleared items this period. The score and trend above reflect where the feed stands today.

What needs attention next

Three improvements, in priority order, each sized so the board can see what it is approving:

1. Ask your AVL vendor why the feed stopped advancing; the GTFS-Realtime header timestamp should move forward on every publish.

   The realtime feed's last update was about 15 hours old when sampled. A realtime feed this far behind has effectively stopped. Riders see buses that already left, or apps quietly fall back to the schedule while still showing a live label.

   Estimated effort: A vendor support ticket; treat it as a feed outage.

2. Check with your AVL vendor that every vehicle assignment flows into TripUpdates, including school-day and tripper runs.

   21 of 21 trips scheduled during the sampling window had no live predictions. Riders on those trips get schedule data dressed up as realtime. Caltrans expects every operating trip in TripUpdates.

   Estimated effort: A vendor data-mapping question.

   Agencies here usually clear this within about 1 week (based on 84 observed fixes).

3. Set wheelchair_boarding to 1 (accessible) or 2 (not accessible) for every stop. A field survey can start with the busiest stops.

   880 of 880 stops don't say whether a wheelchair user can board there. Riders who use wheelchairs can't plan a trip when accessibility is marked 'unknown'; apps show no information at all.

   Estimated effort: A column in stops.txt; your scheduling software likely has it.

Where this agency stands

Ahead of 48% of all tracked agencies, and ahead of 45% of mid-size agencies nationwide.