I think the live map is cool but (1) I don't know where to get that data and (2) seeing things at 100x speed is, IMO, more interesting as a visual
It's based off schedules but only Toei's schedules are easy to get (AFAICT). I got permission for the most of the others, but I thought the visual was good as is ... mostly. Maube I'll revisit.
I remember how the "live map" for public transport in Berlin was actually a map with where the transport should be, not where it actually was. At least that was the case a couple of years ago with VBB =)
CorvusCrypto 2 hours ago [-]
I do see some isolated improvements whenever I travel to Germany (mostly to Frankfurt, but what is pain other than Frankfurt am Main), but yeah I sympathize here, and do hope the pushes toward better systems continue
wolvoleo 1 hours ago [-]
And yet pretty accurate :)
rrr_oh_man 2 hours ago [-]
This also doesn’t seem to move, despite the numerous AI CSS slop badges
ssernikk 1 hours ago [-]
I don't want to be negative here, just asking out of curiosity. Does anyone actually use apps/services like this? Why would it be useful?
Normally when I want to get somewhere I just use local public transport navigation app which calculates the route and shows me estimated time of when my tram or bus arrives (taking into account its GPS data). Why would I need to know live position of every vehicle in the city?
Nevertheless, cool project!
rzwitserloot 1 minutes ago [-]
I use the dutch version of this (OVInfo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.skywave.ovi... ) which does have a nicer interface: You _can_ load a map and gawk at it, but by default it loads very fast and shows a list of stops/stations in order of how close they are, and clicking on them shows the up-to-the-minute (in some regions, up-to-the-second) exact departure times including any current delays.
In an public transport heavy region (lots of The Netherlands is PT heavy) this changes how you interact with public transport. You stop planning. You decide you want to go to X, so you walk to the nearest stop you know will take you to X (in contrast to someone who rarely uses PT or lives in a PT light area: They either don't know the routes and thus don't know which stop to walk to, or there is only one stop within walking distance if that), and as you walk, it takes all of about 5 seconds, literally, to know if you should walk briskly or have time for a detour or whatever. Or even check if a different stop would be more efficient.
It's powered by the same data. 'look, a map!' is visually the most interesting, and thus perhaps appropriate here, where I would assume most readers don't even live in Belgium.
edarchis 58 minutes ago [-]
Absolutely, the official apps are lacking. Google maps has incorrect timetables and the TEC app doesn't give you any way of knowing when the next bus will be and where in traffic it is. I recently had a bus at say 10:00, I get there at 9:58 and wait until 10:15 for the bus. Leaving the stop and seeing the bus pass a bit later is extremely infuriating. This kind of map lets you check where the bus actually is. Not so convenient on a phone but I'll take it.
well_ackshually 58 minutes ago [-]
Because there's about as many ways of taking public transit as there are users. For many, live maps are critical. I don't understand why either, but people want the "control" it offers and knowing that their bus is around the corner (it's not, the data is always over a minute stale because it goes through 5 intermediaries)
Delete that feature and you suddenly get a horde of angry users
ostacke 1 hours ago [-]
This thread is full of people linking similar projects for different locations. The next step must be to combine it all to a global live map. Useful for... something, I'm sure.
Betelbuddy 1 hours ago [-]
We should also have a hierarchy:
Platinum - Real Live Location
Gold - Live as Estimated Where It Should Be From Last Observation
Silver - Live as Estimated According to Published Schedule
I've first seen this in Moscow around 2018 (in Google Maps) and then in Ivano-Frankovsk in 2021 (some local custom app). I think such live maps are the best use of public funds one could imagine.
georgefrowny 4 hours ago [-]
I dunno, I think there's one better use and that's funding a federated framework for this so any transport network can just plug into the system as a source and any client can plug in as a consumer.
tomtomtom777 3 hours ago [-]
Well, there is this: https://mobilitydatabase.org/ which sounds about what you're looking for, although it is still up to the client to combine the feeds its looking for.
wouterjanl 4 hours ago [-]
Awesome! Looking at the metro stop near me here in Brussels, the trains seemed stuck for a while at the station. Not impossible this was just real :) Great way to admire the density and connectivity of our public transport!!
jeffjeffersen 4 hours ago [-]
This is well made, would love to have this in my own country as I can never trust the actual timers on the bus stops.
How do you get access to the data? Is it a public government API? How did you manage to map all the routes too?
ap-andersson 2 hours ago [-]
What country are you in?
There are a bunch of different protocols used to exchange scheduled and live transit information out there. And there are also a lot of different companies actually operating the vehicles (Transport Authorities). Sometimes several within one large city. But even if they have different systems underneath often they expose one of the popular protocols. Often there are even rules/law about certain protocols that you HAVE to support.
In USA that is mostly GTFS and GFTS-RT. I dod not think its a law but something about what you have to do to get funds maybe? I'm in Europe so my memory is foggy.
In EU I believe its NeTEx and SIRI. And every member nation needs a national hub where all transport authorities shares its data openly.
GTFS + GTFS-RT is very popular among consumer apps since its both pretty simple and pull-based. Static data is in CSV-files in a ZIP-file and the realtime data comes via Protobuf. If you check sources on the page this post is about you will se many GTFS sources. Ofc even transit systems built for the european standards can expose GTFS via a translation layer to support a broader range of consumers easily.
When it comes to signs at bus-stops there are those that are fed with this kind of data and can show both timetable data and realtime data based on the vehicles position. Here those signs are everywhere (Sweden) and I know there are plenty in the rest of Europe aswell. Outside of that I don't know if they are used as much.
jpoesen 4 hours ago [-]
There's a "sources" button at the bottom left that seems to appear at certain zoom levels.
> "vlive is an independent app and not an official app of any government, public authority or transport operator. It is not affiliated with, nor does it represent, NMBS/SNCB, De Lijn, STIB-MIVB or TEC. All data comes from their open data; where it matters, the official sources below are authoritative."
melicerte 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
wvh 4 hours ago [-]
Fascinating... I have a thing with maps. Does the information come from a central server that runs some open-source protocol for public transport, or is this gathered from different endpoints in different formats?
smrtzo 3 hours ago [-]
feel like its computed from the time table and not live or am I mistaken?
* For companies publishing real time positions (STIB-MIVB, TEC), live position will be shown. For companies that don't (De Lijn, NMBS/SNBC), we calculate the position based on the schedule (GTFS), corrected with published delays (GTFS-RT).
Every vehicle on the map is labeled with realtime / calculated position.
tmtvl 3 hours ago [-]
When you hover over a dot you can see whether it's the real position or whether the position is computed from the timetable with delay applied. The transparent yellow dots are computed, the opaque yellow dots are real position. Same for transparent vs opaque gray and orange dots; the blue dots all appear to be computed (makes sense, the NMBS doesn't provide real-time info about where trains are as far as I know).
Alexander-Barth 3 hours ago [-]
For most of them it says "real position" and some show a delay.
luplex 2 hours ago [-]
same thing with global data (but of course not full coverage everywhere):
https://travic.app
jpoesen 4 hours ago [-]
Great companion to https://irail.be, a minimalist counterpart to this site, also based on open data.
neals 4 hours ago [-]
I just figured out that on Mallorca, the busses are shown like that on Google Maps. Which to me was mind blowing. I had never seen it, it's so convenient.
Really nice! The place names are a little hard to read especially in dark mode, other than that great job! Thanks for sharing!
loloquwowndueo 3 hours ago [-]
That’s because dark mode itself is hard to read. Use normal mode like god intended your eyes will thank you.
ramon156 4 hours ago [-]
In the netherlands we have 9292 which imo is the most mature implementation.
embedding-shape 5 hours ago [-]
Soon we'll be needing a live map of all the live maps in the world.
oschvr 4 hours ago [-]
Wow very useful thank you !
mci-1 2 hours ago [-]
Author here! Thanks for posting the app!
Two notes on what you are looking at:
Not every vehicle is a live position. STIB-MIVB and TEC publish vehicle positions and those are shown as received. De Lijn and NMBS/SNCB do not, so their vehicles are computed from the timetable and corrected with the delays they do publish (GTFS-RT). Each marker is tagged live, computed with delay, or computed, and the computed ones are drawn dimmer.
All data is open data. The four operators publish through one federal portal (data.belgianmobility.io) under CC BY 4.0: GTFS for timetables and route geometry, GTFS-RT for delays, alerts and positions where available. NMBS ships no route geometry, so train paths are routed over Infrabel's open track network.
This is not specific to Belgium. Nearly every country publishes public-transport open data in the same formats, and I was able to locate feeds for most European countries. A map like this can be built for almost any of them!
Happy to answer questions on the data or the simulation :)
sixtyj 23 minutes ago [-]
Nice effort. Well done.
Those who don’t bookmark but write url by memory get extra points /s
https://greggman.github.io/tokyo-trains
I think the live map is cool but (1) I don't know where to get that data and (2) seeing things at 100x speed is, IMO, more interesting as a visual
It's based off schedules but only Toei's schedules are easy to get (AFAICT). I got permission for the most of the others, but I thought the visual was good as is ... mostly. Maube I'll revisit.
https://www.iamexpat.de/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/new-site-al...
Normally when I want to get somewhere I just use local public transport navigation app which calculates the route and shows me estimated time of when my tram or bus arrives (taking into account its GPS data). Why would I need to know live position of every vehicle in the city?
Nevertheless, cool project!
In an public transport heavy region (lots of The Netherlands is PT heavy) this changes how you interact with public transport. You stop planning. You decide you want to go to X, so you walk to the nearest stop you know will take you to X (in contrast to someone who rarely uses PT or lives in a PT light area: They either don't know the routes and thus don't know which stop to walk to, or there is only one stop within walking distance if that), and as you walk, it takes all of about 5 seconds, literally, to know if you should walk briskly or have time for a detour or whatever. Or even check if a different stop would be more efficient.
It's powered by the same data. 'look, a map!' is visually the most interesting, and thus perhaps appropriate here, where I would assume most readers don't even live in Belgium.
Delete that feature and you suddenly get a horde of angry users
Platinum - Real Live Location
Gold - Live as Estimated Where It Should Be From Last Observation
Silver - Live as Estimated According to Published Schedule
You Kidding Me? - Animated JavaScript...
(I'm joking. Local trains in Tokyo area are late quite often. Doesn't matter much when there's one every <5 minutes though.)
https://truetime.rideprt.org/map
There are a bunch of different protocols used to exchange scheduled and live transit information out there. And there are also a lot of different companies actually operating the vehicles (Transport Authorities). Sometimes several within one large city. But even if they have different systems underneath often they expose one of the popular protocols. Often there are even rules/law about certain protocols that you HAVE to support.
In USA that is mostly GTFS and GFTS-RT. I dod not think its a law but something about what you have to do to get funds maybe? I'm in Europe so my memory is foggy.
In EU I believe its NeTEx and SIRI. And every member nation needs a national hub where all transport authorities shares its data openly.
GTFS + GTFS-RT is very popular among consumer apps since its both pretty simple and pull-based. Static data is in CSV-files in a ZIP-file and the realtime data comes via Protobuf. If you check sources on the page this post is about you will se many GTFS sources. Ofc even transit systems built for the european standards can expose GTFS via a translation layer to support a broader range of consumers easily.
When it comes to signs at bus-stops there are those that are fed with this kind of data and can show both timetable data and realtime data based on the vehicles position. Here those signs are everywhere (Sweden) and I know there are plenty in the rest of Europe aswell. Outside of that I don't know if they are used as much.
> "vlive is an independent app and not an official app of any government, public authority or transport operator. It is not affiliated with, nor does it represent, NMBS/SNCB, De Lijn, STIB-MIVB or TEC. All data comes from their open data; where it matters, the official sources below are authoritative."
From: https://openbaarvervoerbelgie.be/over-ons/
* For companies publishing real time positions (STIB-MIVB, TEC), live position will be shown. For companies that don't (De Lijn, NMBS/SNBC), we calculate the position based on the schedule (GTFS), corrected with published delays (GTFS-RT).
Every vehicle on the map is labeled with realtime / calculated position.
Two notes on what you are looking at:
Not every vehicle is a live position. STIB-MIVB and TEC publish vehicle positions and those are shown as received. De Lijn and NMBS/SNCB do not, so their vehicles are computed from the timetable and corrected with the delays they do publish (GTFS-RT). Each marker is tagged live, computed with delay, or computed, and the computed ones are drawn dimmer.
All data is open data. The four operators publish through one federal portal (data.belgianmobility.io) under CC BY 4.0: GTFS for timetables and route geometry, GTFS-RT for delays, alerts and positions where available. NMBS ships no route geometry, so train paths are routed over Infrabel's open track network.
This is not specific to Belgium. Nearly every country publishes public-transport open data in the same formats, and I was able to locate feeds for most European countries. A map like this can be built for almost any of them!
Happy to answer questions on the data or the simulation :)
Those who don’t bookmark but write url by memory get extra points /s
Ptm.be is for rent btw (public transport map)