OpenTripPlanner in 2026: how the open-source multimodal trip-planning engine works, OTP2 routing, GTFS and NeTEx support, and deployment costs.
OpenTripPlanner is an open-source routing engine that computes multimodal trip itineraries, combining public transit schedules with walking, cycling, and driving networks to answer 'how do I get from A to B' queries.
It began in 2009 as a TriMet-funded effort to unify several competing open-source transit routing tools into a single successor project, and has since grown into a globally used platform maintained by an international community of transit agencies and developers rather than any single company.
OTP ingests GTFS transit schedule data and OpenStreetMap street/path data to build a routable graph, then computes itineraries across transit, walking, biking, and driving, including real-time updates via GTFS-Realtime feeds for delays and service changes. The OTP2 release introduced a round-based transit routing engine inspired by R5 for much faster performance, along with support for the EU's NeTEx data standard.
The engine exposes REST and GraphQL APIs for integration into web and mobile trip-planning applications, supports accessibility-aware routing such as wheelchair-accessible itineraries, and can calculate fares for supported transit systems, all while being fully self-hostable on an agency's own infrastructure.
OpenTripPlanner is free and open source under the LGPL license, so there is no software cost to download, deploy, or modify it.
Real-world costs come from server hosting, preparing and maintaining GTFS/NeTEx and OSM data feeds, and any optional commercial integration, hosting, or support services purchased from firms in the OTP ecosystem, which are typically quoted on a custom basis.
Yes, OpenTripPlanner is open source under the LGPL license and free to download, deploy, and modify. Costs come from hosting, data preparation, and any optional paid support.
It originated in 2009 through a project funded by TriMet, Portland's transit agency, which brought together the developers of several earlier open-source transit routing tools to build a unified successor.
It uses GTFS (and GTFS-Realtime for live updates) or NeTEx for transit schedules, combined with OpenStreetMap data for streets, paths, and cycling infrastructure.
OTP2 is a major 2020 rewrite of OpenTripPlanner's transit routing engine, inspired by the R5 algorithm, that significantly improved performance and added support for the EU's NeTEx data standard.
Public transit agencies, regional transportation authorities, and mobility developers use OTP, including TriMet in Portland and national deployments such as Entur in Norway.
Yes, several firms including Conveyal and Cambridge Systematics offer paid hosting, integration, and support services built around OTP, typically quoted per project.
Yes, it can ingest GTFS-Realtime feeds to factor in live delays, cancellations, and service changes when computing itineraries.