3 ms·

Real-time map of Dutch rail traffic

48 points by malte 16y ago

sharpn 16y ago
Someone posted a similar thing for the London Underground from Matthew Somerville about 2 years ago here (can't find the hn link): http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
danieldk 16y ago
Very nice! There is not much information on the website, do they use the regular schedule to calculate the train positions or something more sophisticated (GPS positions broadcasted from the train)?
- qF 16y ago
  They calculate the positions. Though recently the railway implemented a system in their trains that seems to use GPS to inform passengers on realtime arrival times. So perhaps in the future they will make GPS data available in their API. The railway company is kinda behind on how the world (of data) works, and they have for a long time considered this kind of information as exclusive information that nobody else should be able to access. Despite being government owned..
  - route66 16y ago
    It's indeed precalculated. Right now the official site of the train service lists blocking construction work on some routes, no train is riding there. On the map though they are still on schedule. Nevertheless a nice piece of work, but not really "live".
  - Luc 16y ago
    > The railway company is kinda behind on how the world (of data) works, and they have for a long time considered this kind of information as exclusive information that nobody else should be able to access. Despite being government owned.. The same thing happened in Belgium. A student made a mobile website for accessing rail times, was ignored by the rail company for 18 months, then got threatened into shutting down when the rail company finally made their own application (which naturally doesn't work as well). Luckily a few government ministers made the rail company see the light, despite their protestations.
- Shabaz 16y ago
  It is calculated based on train schedules from what I can tell. I just got off the train and there is an outage between Almere and Lelystad (in the middle of the map) because of maintenance, but I can see active trains on the map. The entire service is run by buses this weekend.
- joelhaasnoot 16y ago
  The data is based of a scraped/entered train schedule from 2009, and hasn't been updated since. Essentially, the data is always playing back the regular schedule, but is offset by any delays (which can now be obtained by API, earlier by scraping the railway's mobile site). Other than that they use the average acceleration and braking performance of trains, and the max speed at route points. The project apparently never was finished: this works but isn't up to date. A very similar site and likely by the same maker won a "Who is better than Google" prize a few years back. It's funny this link pops up now: the Dutch Railways announced an API on March 31st.
kposehn 16y ago
This is awesome!
rasur 16y ago
There's a similar one for Swiss trains.
- iliis 16y ago
  Yep: http://www.swisstrains.ch/ http://www.swisstrains.ch/ (Search eg. for "Zürich HB" for some traffic) But it's also just timetables drawn to a map :/ Oh, and then there's one for planes: http://radar.zhaw.ch/radar.html http://radar.zhaw.ch/radar.html This actually uses real data (They have a transponderdata-receiver on the roof) and there's a Google Earth version: http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transport-and-traffic-engineering/real-time-air-traffic-in-3d.html http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transpor...
  - bosse 16y ago
    There's also one for ships, using real GPS data from AIS - http://marinetraffic.com/ais/ http://marinetraffic.com/ais/ and another one for planes http://www.flightradar24.com/ http://www.flightradar24.com/
Kenw00t 16y ago
The Belgian railways have a similar thing, which is on an official site: http://www.railtime.be/website/traffic-trains http://www.railtime.be/website/traffic-trains There's not much traffic now since it's midnight. Also, the banner on top is completely Javascript.
epall 16y ago
I built something like this for Caltrain: http://epall.github.com/animated-caltrain/ http://epall.github.com/animated-caltrain/

48 points by malte 16y ago

Someone posted a similar thing for the London Underground from Matthew Somerville about 2 years ago here (can't find the hn link): http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/

danieldk 16y ago

Very nice! There is not much information on the website, do they use the regular schedule to calculate the train positions or something more sophisticated (GPS positions broadcasted from the train)?

qF 16y ago
They calculate the positions. Though recently the railway implemented a system in their trains that seems to use GPS to inform passengers on realtime arrival times. So perhaps in the future they will make GPS data available in their API. The railway company is kinda behind on how the world (of data) works, and they have for a long time considered this kind of information as exclusive information that nobody else should be able to access. Despite being government owned..
- route66 16y ago
  It's indeed precalculated. Right now the official site of the train service lists blocking construction work on some routes, no train is riding there. On the map though they are still on schedule. Nevertheless a nice piece of work, but not really "live".
- Luc 16y ago
  > The railway company is kinda behind on how the world (of data) works, and they have for a long time considered this kind of information as exclusive information that nobody else should be able to access. Despite being government owned.. The same thing happened in Belgium. A student made a mobile website for accessing rail times, was ignored by the rail company for 18 months, then got threatened into shutting down when the rail company finally made their own application (which naturally doesn't work as well). Luckily a few government ministers made the rail company see the light, despite their protestations.
Shabaz 16y ago
It is calculated based on train schedules from what I can tell. I just got off the train and there is an outage between Almere and Lelystad (in the middle of the map) because of maintenance, but I can see active trains on the map. The entire service is run by buses this weekend.
joelhaasnoot 16y ago
The data is based of a scraped/entered train schedule from 2009, and hasn't been updated since. Essentially, the data is always playing back the regular schedule, but is offset by any delays (which can now be obtained by API, earlier by scraping the railway's mobile site). Other than that they use the average acceleration and braking performance of trains, and the max speed at route points. The project apparently never was finished: this works but isn't up to date. A very similar site and likely by the same maker won a "Who is better than Google" prize a few years back. It's funny this link pops up now: the Dutch Railways announced an API on March 31st.

kposehn 16y ago

This is awesome!

rasur 16y ago

There's a similar one for Swiss trains.

iliis 16y ago
Yep: http://www.swisstrains.ch/ http://www.swisstrains.ch/ (Search eg. for "Zürich HB" for some traffic) But it's also just timetables drawn to a map :/ Oh, and then there's one for planes: http://radar.zhaw.ch/radar.html http://radar.zhaw.ch/radar.html This actually uses real data (They have a transponderdata-receiver on the roof) and there's a Google Earth version: http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transport-and-traffic-engineering/real-time-air-traffic-in-3d.html http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transpor...
- bosse 16y ago
  There's also one for ships, using real GPS data from AIS - http://marinetraffic.com/ais/ http://marinetraffic.com/ais/ and another one for planes http://www.flightradar24.com/ http://www.flightradar24.com/

Kenw00t 16y ago

The Belgian railways have a similar thing, which is on an official site: http://www.railtime.be/website/traffic-trains http://www.railtime.be/website/traffic-trains There's not much traffic now since it's midnight. Also, the banner on top is completely Javascript.

epall 16y ago

I built something like this for Caltrain: http://epall.github.com/animated-caltrain/ http://epall.github.com/animated-caltrain/