What are timing points?

GTFS defines timing points as

“A time point indicates if arrival and departure times for a stop are strictly adhered to by the vehicle or if they are instead approximate and/or interpolated times. This field allows a GTFS producer to provide interpolated stop-times, while indicating that the times are approximate. Valid options are:

0 - Times are considered approximate.
1 or empty - Times are considered exact.”

A service is not judged on every stop being arrived at on time. Instead, certain stops along a route are designated as ‘timing points’. These timing point stops act to measure the interim performance of a service between the first and last stop and are helpful to analyse whether there are consistent issues at certain points of a route.

The first and last stop on a route are always timing points.

All other stops are defined as interim stops.