Neo4j creating nodes and relationships from Bus route CSV

Question

I have a CSV file with bus route information that looks like this. I am having trouble creating nodes and path relationships in Neo4j with it in this format.

I would like to have nodes for the stops and routes, and routes between them using the sequence and route detail id to show the direction of the routes.

RouteName	route_detail_id	Stop	Sequence	Arrives	Departs
Bus1	50701	Cherry	1		9:00
Bus1	50802	Market	2	9:30	10:00
Bus1	59003	Raleigh	3	10:30	10:50
Bus1	59004	Stuart	4	11:05	11:30
Bus1	58006	Possum	5	12:30
Bus2	67003	Cherry	1		11:00
Bus2	67004	Market	2	11:30	12:00
Bus2	67009	Raleigh	3	12:30	12:50
Bus2	67010	Stuart	4	13:05	13:30
Bus2	67011	Possum	5	14:30
Bus3	89004	Highland	1		9:00
Bus3	88005	McKinley	2	9:30	10:00
Bus3	67098	Jersey	3	10:30	10:50
Bus3	4500	Ridgewood	4	11:05	11:30
Bus3	67890	Osprey	5	12:30

route_detail_id is the unique identifier for that particular stop on that particular route.

I would like to be able to use the times for shortest path queries in the future, but right now would just like to be able to create a structure and visualize in neo4j.

Eventually it will be used to create connecting routes, and shortest path searching, but right now I am just stumbling over even converting information in this format to Neo4j.

Answer 1

I would start by converting the format into a list of nodes connected by arcs, such as:

1. Cherry -- Bus1, 50701, n/a, 9:00 --> Market
2. Market -- Bus1, 50802, 9:30, 10:00 --> Raleigh
3. ...
4. Cherry -- Bus2, 67003, n/a, 11:00 --> Market
5. ..

This seems to me to be a more natural way of representing the data, as you have stops (nodes), which are connected by bus routes (directed arcs, with route details).

You can then query the database by looking for links between the nodes. You can convert also convert the arrival/departure times into the duration of the journey between two nodes if you want to find a shortest path.