timetablea

Timetablea is a term used to describe a conceptual standard and accompanying software library for representing and manipulating time-based schedules. It is employed across transportation planning, education, and event management to model when activities start, how long they last, and how they relate to one another. The core aim of timetablea is to provide a consistent, machine-readable representation of timetable elements that can be shared, validated, and published.

The data model typically centers on a Schedule that consists of Trips. Each Trip comprises a sequence of Legs or StopTimes, tying together stops, arrival and departure times, and the order of stops. Timetablea emphasizes time zone awareness, recurrence rules (for daily or weekly patterns), and exceptions (such as holidays or special events). Key attributes include identifiers, start and end times, days of activity, durations, and validity windows.

Features commonly associated with timetablea include interoperability with existing timetable ecosystems, such as translation to and from formats like GTFS or iCal, and export options in JSON, CSV, or XML. Validation tools check for conflicts, infeasible transfers, and data integrity. Many implementations offer APIs for querying schedules, generating printable timetables, and rendering visualizations, as well as import pipelines that ingest data from sensor data, ridership records, or external feeds.

Use cases span public transit agencies planning services, universities producing class and room schedules, and event organizers publishing multi-day programs. While timetablea is discussed in academic and hobbyist contexts as a generic modeling approach, there is no single universal specification, and practical implementations vary by domain and vendor.

See also: GTFS, iCalendar, ICS, Scheduling theory, Time table.