GBFS v3.0 is Live! Here’s Why You’ll Love It 💜
Thanks to a robust community, GBFS keeps getting better and, as of April 11, 2024, GBFS v3.0 is now the official standard! From protecting publishers and riders, reducing implementation costs, and improving the rider experience, GBFS v3.0 brings many new and exciting benefits. If you’re looking to start implementing GBFS v3.0, make sure to check out our article about “How to Upgrade to GBFS v3.0“.
We think you will absolutely love GBFS v3.0 and here’s some reasons why:
Protects Publishers & Riders
In 2024, privacy is paramount. GBFS v3.0 extends the implementation of rotating IDs to deep links, restricting the possibility to track trips. It also makes the feed license explicit to protect publisher data, makes the publisher contact information more accessible to consuming applications, and it adds a new endpoint to list all the feeds from a publisher.
Reduce Implementation Costs
One of the best things about GBFS is that it’s an easy-to-use standard and with GBFS v3.0, the community came together to simplify the standard even further. This makes using GBFS easier and, by extension, even more affordable!
Here’s how:
Geofencing Made Simple
With GBFS v3.0 a new field has been added to simplify geofencing! With geofencing you can set speed limits, ride-through restrictions, or pick-up and return zones. This also allows trip planning apps to suggest routes that fit restrictions. This new field makes it easy to specify restrictions that apply everywhere, like vehicle speed limits for example. Additionally, restrictions now always apply to the interior of zones, making them more intuitive to define.
In-line Translations
While some GBFS feeds already show information in multiple languages, it wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. Well, with GBFS v3.0, the need to duplicate complete datasets has been removed and instead opts for in-line translations.
Standardized Data Types
To make data integrations even easier, data formats have been standardized. This means that opening hours, telephone numbers, prices and other fields are now specified in universal formats.
The Spec is More Intuitive
Shared mobility has changed a lot since it started with just bikes. With v3.0 the word “bike” has been replaced with “vehicle” to make room for all of the different shared mobility options available today and in the future! Additionally, the station capacity fields have been unified across the specification and two field names have been corrected, making the specification more intuitive for newcomers and experts alike.
Improved Rider Experience
A major change with GBFS v3.0 is the option to provide a description of the vehicles including their special features, how-tos, or any other important information. It also adds the cargo bike and seated scooters form factors and warns users of a permanent shutdown of the service.
You Can Upgrade to GBFS v3.0 Today
While GBFS v3.0 is not the official spec just yet, it is a more secure and intuitive version of the specification and you can already start implementing these new changes! To help with this, be sure to check out our recommendations resources by going to the Implementation Guide for GBFS Producers. If you want to learn even more about the spec, click here.
Let’s Keep Improving GBFS Together
To participate in discussions around GBFS and suggest changes and additions to the specification, join the public GBFS Slack channel and the Github repository.
Questions can be addressed to the community via the public GBFS Slack channel or to the Shared Mobility team at MobilityData: sharedmobility@mobilitydata.org.
