Improve Documentation: State Measurement Units.

[uq-bfitzpatrick]

Hello,

I think it would be helpful to specify the measurement units used where measurements are reported that use units. For example, it appears that distances are given in metres.

If the same units of measurement are used throughout the application and its outputs a quick fix could be to put a paragraph or table somewhere near the beginning of the documentation that states the units of measurement used and that these same units are used through out the application and the outputs and reports it generates.

This could help to build confidence in the reporting.

Thank you for this wonderfully useful tool.

[isabelle-dr]

Hello @uq-bfitzpatrick,

In order to make sure we understand the issue correctly: could you provide a specific example of where you were missing the units? For your specific use case:

• What were you trying to do?
• Where in the documentation did you look for the information?
• What did you wish were there?

[uq-bfitzpatrick]

Hello @isabelle-dr,

Thank you for your interest in resolving my issue, my example is as follows.

When the validator generates the notice: equal_shape_distance_diff_coordinates it calculates a new variable actualDistanceBetweenShapePoints and includes it in the summary html report and the output JSON data file.

What I am trying to do:

If this variable is what its' name suggests it to be it is quite useful because I have GTFS files I need to 'repair' that generate the equal_shape_distance_diff_coordinates error notice for hundreds of distinct pairs of shape points. This variable gives me one way to extract a variety of examples of this error by using the summary statistics of actualDistanceBetweenShapePoints.

Where I looked in the documentation:

I looked for a definition of this new variable at the page in the documentation linked in the section of the html table devoted to this specific error: https://github.com/MobilityData/gtfs-validator/blob/master/RULES.md#EqualShapeDistanceDiffCoordinatesNotice

I also searched README.md for a general statement of the units of measurement used by the validator in its outputs.

What I would like to see in the documentation

Statements of the units of measurement used in the data output by the validator.

This isn't urgent This isn't a particularly urgent issue (I can write quick tests to determine the units of measurement of variables of interest to me) but I thought it might be good to expand the documentation in this manner to save future users also having to write similar little tests to ascertain units of measurement used in the data output by the validator.