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Live Map of Swiss Trains

155 points by ano-ther 3y ago

trollied 3y ago
I was surprised how good the Amtrak one is: https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
- stbenjam 3y ago
  That is cool but the number of trains is so depressing.
lqet 3y ago
Does this have real-time positions, or only scheduled positions? Personally I prefer TRAVIC, which has nearly 100% real-time coverage for Switzerland and also includes busses and trams: https://travic.app/?z=9&x=921422.5&y=5949724.5 https://travic.app/?z=9&x=921422.5&y=5949724.5
- zigman1 3y ago
  It says it is "an animation based on the official timetables of the Swiss Federal Railways(SBB) network". To my understanding its only scheduled positions.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    When I was there in 2001, an announcement apologized for a train being 30 seconds late. Scheduled and actual were shockingly close.
    - terminous 3y ago
      To counterpoint: in the height of summer tourist season 2023, I spent a week in Switzerland taking trains and booked several supersaver tickets in advance with 15-30 minute connections. I was told stories of the efficiency of Swiss trains, and that I could book 5-10 min connections with no problems, but chose to be safe and do 15-30 mins. Well, I missed 3 of these connections due to delays on the incoming train. I had to queue at the ticket booth to get it endorsed for the next train.
      - altano 3y ago
        There's no need for anecdotes as the data is published. Only ~1% of connections are missed: https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?=&years=1,4,5,6,7&scroll=1504&highlighted= https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?=&years=1,4,5,6,7&scrol... ~93% of trains are punctual with a VERY strict definition for punctual: within 3 minutes of the scheduled time. If you experienced worse, you were in an unlucky minority of people.
        belter 3y ago
        What your link shows is that train punctuality in 2022 was 92.5 %. That is shocking bad. Back in 2018 at least 10 countries were doing better than Switzerland. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regional-passenger-rail-services-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regi...
        eep_social 3y ago
        Can’t tell from that link but historically the Swiss punctuality standard is three minutes where other countries use five or more, Japan being the notable exception.
        RealStickman_ 3y ago
        I'm not sure how Statista got their info, but most other countries define "late" as being more than 5 minutes behind schedule. In Switzeland that limit is lower with only 3 minutes not counting as late.
        belter 3y ago
        Here is a recent perspective. [1] "Why Swiss trains are less punctual — and what is being done about it" - https://www.thelocal.ch/20220110/why-swiss-trains-are-less-punctual-and-what-is-being-done-about-it https://www.thelocal.ch/20220110/why-swiss-trains-are-less-p... Once more a variation on how to lie with statistics... It does not matter if the overall statistics show a somewhat high value, mostly driven by predicable and frequent travels between Cantons in the mountains, where there is maybe just one track. What matters is the experience of the majority of commuters on urban centers. From [1] in 2022, the year of most recent statistics. "The punctuality values in the last three months on some major intercity routes are below the threshold: Zurich HB - Bern: 73.5 percent of on-time arrivals and departures Lausanne - Geneva: 71.5 percent Basel - Zurich: 67.5 percent Zug - Zurich HB: 76.1 percent Olten - Lucerne: 66.7 percent "
    - Foobar8568 3y ago
      Maybe in 2001...Nowadays 3min delays are still considered as on time as per SBB : "A train is considered on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay."
    - sschueller 3y ago
      When working with the data they generally only provide live data for trips that are off schedule (a deff feed) as the scheduled data might as well be live.
    - bbu 3y ago
      Nice story but that has never happened. Delays are announced when >=3min are expected.
- sonar_un 3y ago
  I was just on a train from Paris to Genève and was looking for a map just like this!
- ano-ther 3y ago
  Timetable interpolation it seems: https://github.com/vasile/transit-map https://github.com/vasile/transit-map Thanks for the Travic link.
  - vasile 3y ago
    Thanks for featuring, author here. This is the first version of the #swisstrains webmap which I've made 17yrs ago, it still runs for historical reasons, it used to fetch also live delays but the position of the trains were still interpolated, using the average speed between the two timetable stops. The other clones are more or less using same technique, swiss transport agencies are not (yet) offering live position of the trains / vehicles, only the actual delays measured at stations.
- TuringNYC 3y ago
  >> Does this have real-time positions, or only scheduled positions? Such an important question! One of my pet peeves with the NYC Metro Timings app is that it sneakily presents scheduled arrivals as real-time. The best example of this is which it shows trainings happily running/arriving on lines that are actually shut down for construction!
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    I don't know about NYC, but in my territory the public transit authority shares live and real-time data with Google. It's exposed in Maps with a very nice interface, such that I don't even need to install the buggy, bespoke app provided by the transit service. They also have an SMS query service which seemed to always be inaccurate or lying. I stopped using it, it was so unreliable. But Google Maps can tell me exactly where the next bus/train is, how much delayed, how crowded it is, whether security is on board or not, because Google polls actual passengers about these parameters.
petee 3y ago
I love that you can see the cars when zoomed, wasn't expecting that
- politelemon 3y ago
  I couldn't see the train cars for most of them just a few of the red 'IC' ones. I wonder what the criteria is to show cars.
  - petee 3y ago
    There are a number of tunnels, though the dim red track lines didn't always show up when i was zoomed
- i_am_not_groot 3y ago
  They even show the marker when it passes by within Google street view !!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
politelemon 3y ago
That's neat it shows some gondola/cable cars too.
hubraumhugo 3y ago
It's hard for foreigners to grasp that our comprehensive public transport network connects even the most remote areas of Switzerland. My parents are living on a farm in the countryside and still I can get there easily by train and bus. If I need some more flexibility (moving stuff, skiing, ...), there are electric car rentals available at any major train stations. It's my ideal version of mobility. PS: The Swiss federal railways also have a large set of open data to enable such cool projects: https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/ https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/
- drunner 3y ago
  One of my favorite YouTubers, not just bikes, did a video last year that highlighted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Compare me visiting my parents who live in a "remote" town of in BC about 200km from Vancouver. After a ferry and a bus I found myself outside a grocery store asking strangers for a ride north (no taxi service). A kind soul drove me to the highway turnoff. I walked the last five miles. That's what most of North America is like once you step slightly outside of the major cities: No car, no get there.
  - pnw 3y ago
    Is that surprising given that you could fit over 200 Switzerlands into Canada and another 200 into the US? BC alone is over 20 times the size of Switzerland. Cars are the best possible option in that case surely?
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      That is correct. Cars are certainly the best option in many circumstances, even from an environmental standpoint. The reason I couldn't get even a taxi was that the taxi company didn't want to drive 30miles just to pick me up, then drive maybe 60miles back after dropping me off. When a small population is spread over a large area, personal vehicles become the most efficient means. That is a large part of why Alaska has the highest rate of private aircraft ownership on the planet. BC rides the literally middle ground between Alaska and the densely populated southern states.
mahrain 3y ago
Dutch trains live: https://treinposities.nl/ https://treinposities.nl/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tibbon 3y ago
Something seems inaccurate here, perhaps data corruption? There’s no way so many trains could be in such a small space. Signed, An American
- rspoerri 3y ago
  http://tracker.geops.ch/ http://tracker.geops.ch/ shows way more connections such as busses, trains or international traffic.
mvexel 3y ago
There's one for The Netherlands as well -> https://en.treinposities.nl/ https://en.treinposities.nl/. Relies on an open API so there's bound to be others. This one is good because it has some live webcam links on the map as well. At least one of the live cams use YouTube as a streaming platform and have active rail nerd communities chatting and answering questions, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfHjV-oUmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfHjV-oUmE
- belter 3y ago
  Does seem to have some latency, as I just saw two trains crossing on https://bouw.live/puls-amsterdam/ https://bouw.live/puls-amsterdam/ with no corresponding trains on the map.
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    If the timestamp in the top right corner is correct, then the livestream lags ~1/2 hour behind.
    - belter 3y ago
      You are correct, its 30 min behind. A live camera that is not live. Makes total sense :-)
Philpax 3y ago
Live map of Tokyo trains: https://minitokyo3d.com/ https://minitokyo3d.com/
neuronic 3y ago
For muötiple European countries: https://mobility.portal.geops.io/de/world.geops.transit?layers=paerke,strassennamen,haltekanten,haltestellen,pois,world.geops.traviclive&x=1163002.15&y=6615524.24&z=7.8 https://mobility.portal.geops.io/de/world.geops.transit?laye...
- thriftwy 3y ago
  https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%2C55.75999999998115,zoom=5 https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%... for the coverage further East. It may be partially relying on timetables and not live data, though.
tetris11 3y ago
As usual, I am still forever confused by whatever the hell Lörrach is. German? Technically yes. Swiss? Technically no. Does it constantly play different cards depending on infrastructure projects within the county? Oh you bet.
- steve1977 3y ago
  It’s definitely German. But we also have a German train station in Switzerland, so there’s that ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Badischer_Bahnhof https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Badischer_Bahnhof
johncoltrane 3y ago
Fr France: https://carto.graou.info/ https://carto.graou.info/
kordlessagain 3y ago
Just watched a train leave and another arrive at Untervaz Bahnhof: https://www.rhb.ch/en/interactive/rhb-livestream https://www.rhb.ch/en/interactive/rhb-livestream. The live map showed it leaving before it did on the cam, and has a timestamp that is closer to my computer than the live map. They are maybe 30-45 seconds apart. That stream page randomly shows different stations and ads, so you have to time it right!
orenlindsey 3y ago
The animations are nice.
peterbraden 3y ago
Looking at this from a swiss train. It seems to be 10-15 minutes out of date compared to GPS.
konspence 3y ago
'Live' implies realtime data, this is based on schedules.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  "they are the same picture"
bad_alloc 3y ago
Here's most of Europe, but mostly based on interpolated schedule data: https://travic.app/?z=6&x=1652866.9&y=6336146.8&l=osm_standard&ol= https://travic.app/?z=6&x=1652866.9&y=6336146.8&l=osm_standa... It's also great to see the utter mess that DB organization is. I found their live tracking on [1], but it can only be ordered as a product to embed somewhere, they don't show it on their site. Then there is the random https://www.bahnhof.de/ https://www.bahnhof.de/, which seems to collect information about train stations. But if you want to schedule your trip or buy a ticket, you'd better get the DB Navigator app, which is not available as a web version. FML. [1] https://www.dbinfrago.com/web https://www.dbinfrago.com/web
vegasbrianc 3y ago
Switzerland had a similar open source solution a few years ago. Unfortunately, the train operator forced it to shutdown as it was scraping the data from the timetables. Not sure how the new solution works but I hope it sticks around.
- harryf 3y ago
  I used to work at https://www.local.ch/en https://www.local.ch/en and know Vasile, the guy that built this map. The situation with trains (and data) in Switzerland is complicated as each Kanton has it's own rail network. In 2016 the SBB _finally_ started making it's train timetable officially available (some info on that here - https://www.itmagazine.ch/artikel/64746/Open-Data-Plattform_OeV_Schweiz_liefert_Echtzeit-Fahrplandaten.html https://www.itmagazine.ch/artikel/64746/Open-Data-Plattform_... ) which is I believe what this map uses, after shutting down people scraping the data. That said, what has always irked me is they gave the data to Google as far back as 2007, while refusing to make anything available for sites like local.ch and map.search.ch (who's map was partly basis for the original Google maps). Refusing may be a leading term but certainly there was no help given to local Swiss companies, while Google already had the train times in maps.
  - eep_social 3y ago
    This doesn’t match my experience. Google requires feeds to be in a specific format [1] but the feed is push from the agency. When I was intimate with the details, agencies were strongly encouraged to publish these feeds at a public url. There were all kinds of things about the format itself that might not have worked for the good folks at local.ch but access to the data is not likely to have been a problem. [1] https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs
vasile 3y ago
Thanks for featuring, author of the website here. This is the same version as the one I've first made back in 2006, the main dataset is a derived GTFS dataset from swiss raw timetables (HRDF) [1]. The position of the trains are interpolated, based on the departure / arrival times of stop times and is using the average speed. I've used to have also an hourly updater for the delays using the GTFS-RT dataset [2] but is gone due to lack of time. ATM there is no official dataset to give the live position of the vehicles, all the other websites are just interpolating positions based on the time delays. The website still runs as hobby project, is not meant to be taken as source of truth for actual position of the trains, though I get many requests from trainspotters and photographers asking me for such feature :) And for some routes you can sit and enjoy watching the route displaying actual train units [3] more a simcity-like feature :) [1] https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024-hrdf https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024... [2] https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/cookbook/gtfs-rt/ https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/cookbook/gtfs-rt/ [3] https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/?hms=10:00:00&vehicle_name=IC5+517 https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/?hms=10:00:00&vehicle_nam...
jpalomaki 3y ago
Switch to satellite view, zoom into some red train dot and you can actually see the train there, running on the tracks. Pretty neat trick!

155 points by ano-ther 3y ago

I was surprised how good the Amtrak one is: https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html

stbenjam 3y ago
That is cool but the number of trains is so depressing.

lqet 3y ago

Does this have real-time positions, or only scheduled positions? Personally I prefer TRAVIC, which has nearly 100% real-time coverage for Switzerland and also includes busses and trams: https://travic.app/?z=9&x=921422.5&y=5949724.5 https://travic.app/?z=9&x=921422.5&y=5949724.5

zigman1 3y ago
It says it is "an animation based on the official timetables of the Swiss Federal Railways(SBB) network". To my understanding its only scheduled positions.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  When I was there in 2001, an announcement apologized for a train being 30 seconds late. Scheduled and actual were shockingly close.
  - terminous 3y ago
    To counterpoint: in the height of summer tourist season 2023, I spent a week in Switzerland taking trains and booked several supersaver tickets in advance with 15-30 minute connections. I was told stories of the efficiency of Swiss trains, and that I could book 5-10 min connections with no problems, but chose to be safe and do 15-30 mins. Well, I missed 3 of these connections due to delays on the incoming train. I had to queue at the ticket booth to get it endorsed for the next train.
    - altano 3y ago
      There's no need for anecdotes as the data is published. Only ~1% of connections are missed: https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?=&years=1,4,5,6,7&scroll=1504&highlighted= https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?=&years=1,4,5,6,7&scrol... ~93% of trains are punctual with a VERY strict definition for punctual: within 3 minutes of the scheduled time. If you experienced worse, you were in an unlucky minority of people.
      - belter 3y ago
        What your link shows is that train punctuality in 2022 was 92.5 %. That is shocking bad. Back in 2018 at least 10 countries were doing better than Switzerland. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regional-passenger-rail-services-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regi...
        eep_social 3y ago
        Can’t tell from that link but historically the Swiss punctuality standard is three minutes where other countries use five or more, Japan being the notable exception.
        RealStickman_ 3y ago
        I'm not sure how Statista got their info, but most other countries define "late" as being more than 5 minutes behind schedule. In Switzeland that limit is lower with only 3 minutes not counting as late.
        belter 3y ago
        Here is a recent perspective. [1] "Why Swiss trains are less punctual — and what is being done about it" - https://www.thelocal.ch/20220110/why-swiss-trains-are-less-punctual-and-what-is-being-done-about-it https://www.thelocal.ch/20220110/why-swiss-trains-are-less-p... Once more a variation on how to lie with statistics... It does not matter if the overall statistics show a somewhat high value, mostly driven by predicable and frequent travels between Cantons in the mountains, where there is maybe just one track. What matters is the experience of the majority of commuters on urban centers. From [1] in 2022, the year of most recent statistics. "The punctuality values in the last three months on some major intercity routes are below the threshold: Zurich HB - Bern: 73.5 percent of on-time arrivals and departures Lausanne - Geneva: 71.5 percent Basel - Zurich: 67.5 percent Zug - Zurich HB: 76.1 percent Olten - Lucerne: 66.7 percent "
  - Foobar8568 3y ago
    Maybe in 2001...Nowadays 3min delays are still considered as on time as per SBB : "A train is considered on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay."
  - sschueller 3y ago
    When working with the data they generally only provide live data for trips that are off schedule (a deff feed) as the scheduled data might as well be live.
  - bbu 3y ago
    Nice story but that has never happened. Delays are announced when >=3min are expected.
sonar_un 3y ago
I was just on a train from Paris to Genève and was looking for a map just like this!
ano-ther 3y ago
Timetable interpolation it seems: https://github.com/vasile/transit-map https://github.com/vasile/transit-map Thanks for the Travic link.
- vasile 3y ago
  Thanks for featuring, author here. This is the first version of the #swisstrains webmap which I've made 17yrs ago, it still runs for historical reasons, it used to fetch also live delays but the position of the trains were still interpolated, using the average speed between the two timetable stops. The other clones are more or less using same technique, swiss transport agencies are not (yet) offering live position of the trains / vehicles, only the actual delays measured at stations.
TuringNYC 3y ago
>> Does this have real-time positions, or only scheduled positions? Such an important question! One of my pet peeves with the NYC Metro Timings app is that it sneakily presents scheduled arrivals as real-time. The best example of this is which it shows trainings happily running/arriving on lines that are actually shut down for construction!
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  I don't know about NYC, but in my territory the public transit authority shares live and real-time data with Google. It's exposed in Maps with a very nice interface, such that I don't even need to install the buggy, bespoke app provided by the transit service. They also have an SMS query service which seemed to always be inaccurate or lying. I stopped using it, it was so unreliable. But Google Maps can tell me exactly where the next bus/train is, how much delayed, how crowded it is, whether security is on board or not, because Google polls actual passengers about these parameters.

petee 3y ago

I love that you can see the cars when zoomed, wasn't expecting that

politelemon 3y ago
I couldn't see the train cars for most of them just a few of the red 'IC' ones. I wonder what the criteria is to show cars.
- petee 3y ago
  There are a number of tunnels, though the dim red track lines didn't always show up when i was zoomed
i_am_not_groot 3y ago
They even show the marker when it passes by within Google street view !!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

politelemon 3y ago

That's neat it shows some gondola/cable cars too.

hubraumhugo 3y ago

It's hard for foreigners to grasp that our comprehensive public transport network connects even the most remote areas of Switzerland. My parents are living on a farm in the countryside and still I can get there easily by train and bus. If I need some more flexibility (moving stuff, skiing, ...), there are electric car rentals available at any major train stations. It's my ideal version of mobility. PS: The Swiss federal railways also have a large set of open data to enable such cool projects: https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/ https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/

drunner 3y ago
One of my favorite YouTubers, not just bikes, did a video last year that highlighted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc
sandworm101 3y ago
Compare me visiting my parents who live in a "remote" town of in BC about 200km from Vancouver. After a ferry and a bus I found myself outside a grocery store asking strangers for a ride north (no taxi service). A kind soul drove me to the highway turnoff. I walked the last five miles. That's what most of North America is like once you step slightly outside of the major cities: No car, no get there.
- pnw 3y ago
  Is that surprising given that you could fit over 200 Switzerlands into Canada and another 200 into the US? BC alone is over 20 times the size of Switzerland. Cars are the best possible option in that case surely?
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    That is correct. Cars are certainly the best option in many circumstances, even from an environmental standpoint. The reason I couldn't get even a taxi was that the taxi company didn't want to drive 30miles just to pick me up, then drive maybe 60miles back after dropping me off. When a small population is spread over a large area, personal vehicles become the most efficient means. That is a large part of why Alaska has the highest rate of private aircraft ownership on the planet. BC rides the literally middle ground between Alaska and the densely populated southern states.

mahrain 3y ago

Dutch trains live: https://treinposities.nl/ https://treinposities.nl/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tibbon 3y ago

Something seems inaccurate here, perhaps data corruption? There’s no way so many trains could be in such a small space. Signed, An American

rspoerri 3y ago
http://tracker.geops.ch/ http://tracker.geops.ch/ shows way more connections such as busses, trains or international traffic.

mvexel 3y ago

There's one for The Netherlands as well -> https://en.treinposities.nl/ https://en.treinposities.nl/. Relies on an open API so there's bound to be others. This one is good because it has some live webcam links on the map as well. At least one of the live cams use YouTube as a streaming platform and have active rail nerd communities chatting and answering questions, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfHjV-oUmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfHjV-oUmE

belter 3y ago
Does seem to have some latency, as I just saw two trains crossing on https://bouw.live/puls-amsterdam/ https://bouw.live/puls-amsterdam/ with no corresponding trains on the map.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  If the timestamp in the top right corner is correct, then the livestream lags ~1/2 hour behind.
  - belter 3y ago
    You are correct, its 30 min behind. A live camera that is not live. Makes total sense :-)

Philpax 3y ago

Live map of Tokyo trains: https://minitokyo3d.com/ https://minitokyo3d.com/

neuronic 3y ago

For muötiple European countries: https://mobility.portal.geops.io/de/world.geops.transit?layers=paerke,strassennamen,haltekanten,haltestellen,pois,world.geops.traviclive&x=1163002.15&y=6615524.24&z=7.8 https://mobility.portal.geops.io/de/world.geops.transit?laye...

thriftwy 3y ago
https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%2C55.75999999998115,zoom=5 https://rasp.yandex.ru/map/trains/#center=37.63999999999997%... for the coverage further East. It may be partially relying on timetables and not live data, though.

tetris11 3y ago

As usual, I am still forever confused by whatever the hell Lörrach is. German? Technically yes. Swiss? Technically no. Does it constantly play different cards depending on infrastructure projects within the county? Oh you bet.

steve1977 3y ago
It’s definitely German. But we also have a German train station in Switzerland, so there’s that ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Badischer_Bahnhof https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Badischer_Bahnhof

johncoltrane 3y ago

Fr France: https://carto.graou.info/ https://carto.graou.info/

kordlessagain 3y ago

Just watched a train leave and another arrive at Untervaz Bahnhof: https://www.rhb.ch/en/interactive/rhb-livestream https://www.rhb.ch/en/interactive/rhb-livestream. The live map showed it leaving before it did on the cam, and has a timestamp that is closer to my computer than the live map. They are maybe 30-45 seconds apart. That stream page randomly shows different stations and ads, so you have to time it right!

orenlindsey 3y ago

The animations are nice.

peterbraden 3y ago

Looking at this from a swiss train. It seems to be 10-15 minutes out of date compared to GPS.

konspence 3y ago

'Live' implies realtime data, this is based on schedules.

beebeepka 3y ago
"they are the same picture"

bad_alloc 3y ago

Here's most of Europe, but mostly based on interpolated schedule data: https://travic.app/?z=6&x=1652866.9&y=6336146.8&l=osm_standard&ol= https://travic.app/?z=6&x=1652866.9&y=6336146.8&l=osm_standa... It's also great to see the utter mess that DB organization is. I found their live tracking on [1], but it can only be ordered as a product to embed somewhere, they don't show it on their site. Then there is the random https://www.bahnhof.de/ https://www.bahnhof.de/, which seems to collect information about train stations. But if you want to schedule your trip or buy a ticket, you'd better get the DB Navigator app, which is not available as a web version. FML. [1] https://www.dbinfrago.com/web https://www.dbinfrago.com/web

vegasbrianc 3y ago

Switzerland had a similar open source solution a few years ago. Unfortunately, the train operator forced it to shutdown as it was scraping the data from the timetables. Not sure how the new solution works but I hope it sticks around.

harryf 3y ago
I used to work at https://www.local.ch/en https://www.local.ch/en and know Vasile, the guy that built this map. The situation with trains (and data) in Switzerland is complicated as each Kanton has it's own rail network. In 2016 the SBB _finally_ started making it's train timetable officially available (some info on that here - https://www.itmagazine.ch/artikel/64746/Open-Data-Plattform_OeV_Schweiz_liefert_Echtzeit-Fahrplandaten.html https://www.itmagazine.ch/artikel/64746/Open-Data-Plattform_... ) which is I believe what this map uses, after shutting down people scraping the data. That said, what has always irked me is they gave the data to Google as far back as 2007, while refusing to make anything available for sites like local.ch and map.search.ch (who's map was partly basis for the original Google maps). Refusing may be a leading term but certainly there was no help given to local Swiss companies, while Google already had the train times in maps.
- eep_social 3y ago
  This doesn’t match my experience. Google requires feeds to be in a specific format [1] but the feed is push from the agency. When I was intimate with the details, agencies were strongly encouraged to publish these feeds at a public url. There were all kinds of things about the format itself that might not have worked for the good folks at local.ch but access to the data is not likely to have been a problem. [1] https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs

vasile 3y ago

Thanks for featuring, author of the website here. This is the same version as the one I've first made back in 2006, the main dataset is a derived GTFS dataset from swiss raw timetables (HRDF) [1]. The position of the trains are interpolated, based on the departure / arrival times of stop times and is using the average speed. I've used to have also an hourly updater for the delays using the GTFS-RT dataset [2] but is gone due to lack of time. ATM there is no official dataset to give the live position of the vehicles, all the other websites are just interpolating positions based on the time delays. The website still runs as hobby project, is not meant to be taken as source of truth for actual position of the trains, though I get many requests from trainspotters and photographers asking me for such feature :) And for some routes you can sit and enjoy watching the route displaying actual train units [3] more a simcity-like feature :) [1] https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024-hrdf https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024... [2] https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/cookbook/gtfs-rt/ https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/cookbook/gtfs-rt/ [3] https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/?hms=10:00:00&vehicle_name=IC5+517 https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/?hms=10:00:00&vehicle_nam...

jpalomaki 3y ago

Switch to satellite view, zoom into some red train dot and you can actually see the train there, running on the tracks. Pretty neat trick!