[BUG] Fixing frequent Python errors when using operations.

[emmambd]

Describe the bug I get the following recurring bugs when I follow the steps in Installation and Adding feeds

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Use internal Linux virtual machine (MobilityData specific step)
2. Follow Installation instructions up to and including source env/bin/activate
3. Run from tools.operations import *
4. Get: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'gtfs_kit'

If I rerun the pip install -r requirements.txt command outside the Python VM, then rerun from tools.operations import * I get a new error: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x80 in position 3131: invalid start byte

Expected behavior No error returned after from tools.operations import *

[a-albashir]

Hello, I was countering the same issue but it seems changing the opening statement in the tools/representations.py solved the problem.

Specifically, you can replace the line 91 in that script which now is with open(os.path.join(path, file)) as fp: To with open(os.path.join(path, file), encoding='utf-8') as fp: This solved the problem for me as it avoiding the UnicodeDecodeError by indicate the correct encoding format.

[emmambd]

@a-albashir Thank you for troubleshooting this and suggesting this modification!

Would it be possible for you to contribute this fix as a PR so the community can benefit?

[mil]

@emmambd wonder if you can try with https://github.com/MobilityData/mobility-database-catalogs/pull/524

I was having errors similar to what you describe due to a root issue with pandas/numpy version conflicts prior to making the mentioned change

[davidgamez]

Fixed by #524