Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

Tried the Android version here in the Netherlands where there's an extensive open API for public transport (https://www.openov.nl/, providing live delays and schedule shifts for almost any stop out there).

It suggested such wonderful trips like "just run the entire way at about 72 km/h", "take the bus to Germany, wait for twelve hours, then go back by bus and walk the rest of the way there", and "take the train in the right direction, then switch to the hour long bus ride that leaves at the same time as the train ride but takes three times as long".

I appreciate the attempt here, but there seems to he a big focus on German public transit so I probably wouldn't use it outside Germany. Hopefully there are some public transit fans out there that wouldn't mind giving my local regional routes a bit of a polish one day, because the suggestions it gives me right now are just plain comical.

I used to use the Transportr app (from f-droid) here in the netherlands for a while, but it used the 9292 and NS apis directly, which broke about a year ago and haven't been fixed since. I wonder if implementing openov in this app instead would be a better idea than trying to figure out the new 9292 api.

The problem with using this data is that the data itself is quite raw. You'll have to calculate the routes, potentially merge bus stations/train stations/etc. together for a clean experience and take certain details into account (when you can and can't use international trains for national travels without getting a special ticket, for example: you can often take the ICE to Germany without weird reservations, but don't even try that with the Thalys!).

I'm sure someone knowledgeable in this area will be able to figure that stuff out, but I've been happily using the NS API for my silly side projects because it just kind of works.

The 9292 API was never open as far as I know, though there are several reverse engineered API libraries available for it on Github.

Transportr has excellent 9292 integration.

Do you know what routing provider(s) were in use, out of interest?

It looks like the app builds upon[1] the kpublictransport library, which should offer a few options[2]. I'm not sure how the selection of those is surfaced in the app though, not having used it myself.

[1] - https://invent.kde.org/utilities/ktrip/-/blob/1bd4e070143eb0...

[2] - https://github.com/KDE/kpublictransport#backends

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