Berlin public transport in real time
fahrinfo.vbb.de
fahrinfo.vbb.de
> VBB-Livekarte zeigt berechnete Positionen der Fahrzeuge zwischen zwei Stationen; falls kein Live-Fahrplan vorhanden, dann Position gemäß geplanten Fahrzeiten
Munich's live S-Bahn map[1] takes a slightly different approach:
Um die Position der S-Bahnen auf der Karte anzuzeigen, werden die Positionsmeldungen der Züge an ausgewählten Signalstandorten erfasst und dazwischen hochgerechnet. Es handelt sich somit derzeit um keine GPS-Ortung.
(from "So funktioniert's" on [2])
So they don't actually use GPS positioning either, but they do interpolate from data that comes from their rail signalling system, which I imagine is a bit more precise than using realtime departures and arrivals in hh:mm.
[1] http://www.vbb.de/de/article/fahrplanauskunft/vbb-livekarte/...
[2] http://s-bahn-muenchen.hafas.de/bin/540/help.exe/dn?tpl=live...
[3] http://www.s-bahn-muenchen.de/s_muenchen/view/fahrplan/echtz...
Source is available on Github (not my project).
Select this icon: http://stops.lt/vilnius/_images/vehicles.gif, on the right, to show vehicles as bubbles.
It is real time from GPS transmitters inside the vehicles.
Not what I would call realtime.
Furthermore, if it takes 3 minutes to communicate a delayed train, and your screen is still trying to create a make-believe of updating your screen every 50 milliseconds, is it real-time?
I would even say that the 1 minute update is more real-time than the make-believe 50 millisecond updates.
We are using the same method as the VBB - interpolated timetable data augmented with station-based delay-information where available.
BTW the map cant handle unicode stuff properly there is a boat line called "Sjövägen" where is live and on the map it is named "Sj?"
Real-time means: physical train slows down, communicates with all interested parties within a limited amount of time (for example: 20 milliseconds). Because of CAP, interested parties either show real-time update within 20 milliseconds, or display 'missing data', or sth. Generally, the latter situation is a failure condition (fails the RT condition).
"VBB-Livekarte zeigt berechnete Positionen der Fahrzeuge zwischen zwei Stationen; falls kein Live-Fahrplan vorhanden, dann Position gemäß geplanten Fahrzeiten"
Translation:
It shows the calculated position of the vehicles between two stations. If there currently is no live data it shows according to schedule.
http://www.vbb.de/de/article/fahrplanauskunft/vbb-livekarte/...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96PNV-Bevorrechtigung
(Sorry, no english version available)
http://www.ukmotorists.com/tram_signs.asp
For buses, there would be a normal traffic light controlling only a bus lane, usually labelled with the blue buses only sign. It's not very common, but I know a couple of cases in London.
Depending on your specialization/experience I could give you some tips if you'd like.
The Netherlands is vastly more friendlier to skilled migrants than the UK, which seems particularly xenophobic at the moment, and I think it provides a much friendlier experience than Germany. They have expat centers (http://www.hollandexpatcenter.com/ and http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/expatcenter) that were establish to help immigrants get established and figure out the rules, cultures, and customs of the Netherlands. I've been impressed.
They also incentivise skilled migration by providing a 30% tax scheme for anyone moving there from outside the Netherlands, where 30% of gross income is tax free for a longer period (I think it's 8 years).
I've even spent a couple months learning Dutch (gemakkelijk, maar de uitspraak is moeilijk), although that probably isn't necessary. I hear that English is almost universally spoken in the Netherlands.
I'd certainly be interested in hearing any tips you have. I have over 10 years of web development experience. No mobile app development experience yet, although I'd like to get into that.
- English is spoken by a lot of the Dutch (esp. in bigger cities it's almost everyone)
- The Dutch are friendly people and are generally happy to help a stranger
- 30% tax ruling is a boon in a place where the cost of living is high. Please do your calculations carefully before you consider moving to The Netherlands and ensure you have some clarity from your potential employer about the 30% tax ruling. Also remember that if you lose the 30% tax ruling, you (almost always) lose it for good.
- unlike the usa where the visa process treats you like a potential (or a convicted) criminal, the Dutch treat their guests well. I only have good things to say about the process of moving to The Netherlands.
- no amount of reading or watching videos will help you understand how the Dutch are, unless you live among them. They are straightforward, down to earth and a relaxed people.
If you have made up your mind to move to The Netherlands (please do your calculations on earnings vs cost of living before that!), let me know how I can contact you and I'll refer you to the employer who got me to move to Holland (if this prospect interests you).
EDIT: formatting
Works surprisingly well though, I only realized after a while.
I made simpler map for my personal usage.
I really wish there was this service for buses. Quite often the digital displays saying when the bus will arrive are inaccurate, as are the actual timetables printed on the bus stop (when there is traffic etc.)
Click 'x' on the popup and zoom in to Helsinki to see the city trains. The site says the data is GPS location data.
Los Angeles County was one such I think. I used theirs for some information visualization art projects a couple years ago.
You can enable/disable different types of vehicles: trams, trolleybuses, city buses, regional buses, regional trains, ships (in that order).
No ships today, as the season ended last month).
Alas, I've seen several cases in which the bus's labeling is in error, with the driver calling out the correct route to people at bus stops. Sadly that doesn't affect the reported route or correct what the app displays.
Use public transport data from all the sources below, overlap them on Google aerial view, change the dots to 'top view' images of buses, and let the users follow buses in 'real time' across 'real life' map. It'll be like a real-time satellite imagery!
Also: keep the directions in mind. This one (posted downthread) shows where the buses are pointed too. http://traintimes.org.uk/map/london-buses/#41
Link me if someone decides/has done this. I might be able to contribute
All the transport maps at that time I knew about, like Swisstrains (http://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/), worked off webservers, so that was the motivation behind writing a purely client-side app.
Unfortunately you can't click to it, so here's a screenshot: http://imgur.com/TJwTBAY
To get to it, go to http://www.amtrak.com/find-train-bus-stations-train-routes
then click on the "Check Train Status" image near the top right of the page.
The difference in train presence between USA and elsewhere is staggering (and embarrassing).
Live tracking: http://totransit.ca
Open Data: http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=9e56...
> http://fahrinfo.vbb.de/bin/help.exe
Who would run this on a webserver?
I have seen such rewrites in place to keep old CGI URLs from breaking, as their consumers were scattered all over time and space, and it was easier to internally remap the old URLs (which have over the years essentially become a public API) than have them stop working.
> Who would run this on a webserver?
Who wouldn't? It's an executable. Just like your favourite language runtime. Just like 90% of the web.
TL;DR: Might be a segfault, but it's 2015 - it probably isn't.
The software has a long history, the first webserver with it was started in 1995 and even that most likely reused logic from their first version of 1989. So the language choice is not too surprising.
(That said, I'd be concerned if this is actually CGI..)
It's just code.
It uses live data but it doesn't interpolate position. It updates about every 15-20s or so. Source is available (and FOSS) [1].
Looks awesome by the way, I wish this were more common. In the UK, many similar projects were shut down over IP issues.
Small blue points are buses, larger circles are on rails (subway and trains).
vizicities.com
ViziCities is the first project to visualise the entire London Underground network in 3D using accurate station depths. Not only that, we also visualise real, live trains moving along the 3D network.
Also made by HaCon (http://www.hacon.de).
More recently, one London bus at a time: http://traintimes.org.uk/map/london-buses/#73
There's a decent amount of open rail data, and a website listing usages: http://www.openraildata.info/
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-do...
John Murdoch: Excuse me. How do I get to the end of the line?
Train Passenger: You want the Express.
John Murdoch: [after train blows by him] Hey, how come that
train didn't stop?
Station Master: That's the Express.Full text: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25293822
Also, I know you were joking, but let's not generalise and say middle east shall we? :)
Back to the topic: Munich had something for the S-Bahn, the commuter train system, in their app for several years already. I really doubt that it's a security risk and find it sad that this is the first reaction something as nice as this gets.
I didn't mean it to come off so paranoid actually, I was just interested in starting a discussion about it, hence the "Isn't this" vs "THIS IS DEFINITELY"! I agree it's awesome tech, especially as it loads instantly on coffee shop internet, but all the comments here already reflect that.
That's what the map is doing, anyway (plus delays).
As far as I understand the technologies (and I assume that Berlin does the same thing as every other city-user), a precise ("physical") GPS position is usually not reported (although newer systems do that as well), but a position at a "logical" map is. In case of buses, this usually means "left the previous stop at $xx:$yy, with $zz seconds of delay; reported average speed is normal for this area, so expected arrival is at $aa:$bb." In case of trains, the usual reported data is "has left section of track $AA, is now at $BB, delay $x seconds, expected at $CC in $yy:$zz".
Not millisecond-perfect, but fairly precise to about a minute or two; the biggest guesstimate is the exact position (you'll see that all the trains seem to be using a single track, where in reality they would be on different ones).
So, while delays are reported near-realtime (and thus the scenario you describe doesn't happen), the map might be inaccurate if the route needs to be changed (e.g. there's an accident blocking the road and a bus needs to take the next street instead). Again, with the rollout of GPS-equipment across fleets, this becomes less of an issue. Btw, most delays are unplanned ;)
The L train in New York is an example of where this is installed. My understanding is this means the two staff on the train are redundant; the driver pretty much just provides acknowledgement to the train to keep doing its thing, and the conductor only opens and closes doors and makes announcements (if that). They would run with only a single staff member except for union rules.
However, even when the position of the train is known precisely (no need for fancy CTBC, just start counting wheel revolutions from a known starting point and reset any measuring error at the next known-good point, usually a station - which is the basic way the Parisians do it with their driverless metro lines), not every transport agency exposes this sort of raw data to the general public; usually it's watered down to "it's between Station A and Station B, with X seconds of delay."
FWIW, automation is actually mostly tangential to absolute v. moving block signalling. As far as I'm aware, most automated systems still use absolute block signalling.
On other lines, my understanding is that the signalling system doesn't know which train occupies a block, just that a train occupies the block. Which block is occupied isn't sent to a central control center either.
So "there's a Brooklyn-bound train 2 stops away" is the best it can do, since it can know based on which side of the tracks the train is on where the train is going. It can't know the letter or number.