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Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

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Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#71

Post by jkukul »

miniwark wrote: post #58

The problem with Berlin is than there are many operators for public transport by train: * U-Bahn, for the subways (underground & aerial) * S-Bahn, for sub-urban lines (mostly aerial) * Traway in est-Berlin A map, live or not need at least to combine the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, (and if possible the tramway too), because you generally need to use both networks (with the same ticket) to travel. Staying in only one of the…

There's actually a button in the upper right corner to enable both S+U Bahn! Although the app gets a little sluggish for me when I enable them both.

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#73

Post by derhuerst »

dewey wrote: post #59
miniwark wrote: post #58

The problem with Berlin is than there are many operators for public transport by train: * U-Bahn, for the subways (underground & aerial) * S-Bahn, for sub-urban lines (mostly aerial) * Traway in est-Berlin A map, live or not need at least to combine the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, (and if possible the tramway too), because you generally need to use both networks (with the same ticket) to travel. Staying in only one of the…

This exists, built by the VBB: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647874

Note that this also just interpolates the vehicles' positions based on their delay, which in turn is calculated based on periodic pings that the vehicle sends AFAIK.

So the map does not show realtime positions in the same sense as e.g. HSL's trip planner does. [1][2]

[1] In the departures section on the left, tap on one of the upcoming departures to see the vehicle in realtime: https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=e... [2] https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/veh...

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#75

Post by derhuerst »

purecode wrote: post #32

There is a real Berlin live map of subway, bus and railway at: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ by the operator. Seems no english version available, you have to - click upper right corner "Livekarte" - click on the menu again "Livekarte" - select means of transport: radio buttons for subway, railway etc - zoom in to see subway

Note that this just interpolates the vehicles' positions based on their delay, which in turn is calculated based on periodic pings that the vehicle sends AFAIK. So the map does not show realtime positions in the same sense as e.g. HSL's trip planner does [1][2]. In fact, the location and speed of a vehicle can be very off.

Personally, I loathe this map, because it gives an impression of accurate data, even though it isn't that precise. VBB gets credit for providing supposedly reliable data, even though they could (and should, given amount of tax money spent) provide much better data!

[1] In the departures section on the left, tap on one of the upcoming departures to see the vehicle in realtime: https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=e... [2] https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/veh...

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#76

Post by derhuerst »

quantumduck wrote: post #30
radiosnob wrote: post #3

Very nice. Given the smoothness, I first thought this was real-time:) As someone who lives in Berlin, I didn't know there was an open API for the VBB. I'll have to have a look at it. And loving the Minimetro vibes! (Running this on android 10 on a OnePlus 7pro - runs smooth in Chrome)

I don't know if VBB used this, but most transit agencies publish their data in two standard formats these days GTFS for static schedules and GTFS-real time for real-time data. Any application you build around these formats would immediately scale to pretty much every big city. Google maps and Apple maps provide transit directions in their apps using GTFS and GTFS real time data (partly the reason why Apple maps was a…

VBB has been publishing GTFS (Static/Schedule) data for almost 10 years now. [1][2]

But there is no (truly open) realtime data (e.g. GTFS Realtime or SIRI) available because their API [3] - requires signing a draconian contract (e.g. ridiculous liability clauses, no permission to pass the data on in any form), and - API works individual vehicles/trips, so you'd have to poll every single one out there to get the equivalent of a GTFS-RT dataset.

There is an unofficial API though [4][5] that is de-facto open, and I have built a tool that pools the data and creates a GTFS-RT feed. [6]

[1] https://daten.berlin.de/datensaetze/vbb-fahrplandaten-gtfs [2] https://www.golem.de/news/open-data-verkehrsverbund-berlin-b... [3] https://www.vbb.de/vbb-services/api-open-data/api/ [4] https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client/tree/5.25.0... [5] https://github.com/public-transport/transport-apis/blob/8e05... [6] https://github.com/derhuerst/berlin-gtfs-rt-server

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#77

Post by dewey »

derhuerst wrote: post #69
miniwark wrote: post #58

The problem with Berlin is than there are many operators for public transport by train: * U-Bahn, for the subways (underground & aerial) * S-Bahn, for sub-urban lines (mostly aerial) * Traway in est-Berlin A map, live or not need at least to combine the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, (and if possible the tramway too), because you generally need to use both networks (with the same ticket) to travel. Staying in only one of the…

It's such a shame that the official Tram network map [1] almost fits the U-Bahn/S-Bahn map [2], but not exactly. My assumption is that, when BVG designed these, they had separate maps in mind already early in the process, because including all station names on a tiny printed map is not feasible. With those transparent maps at the trams' windows though, or especially with a digital zoomable map, this would be complete…

Thanks for the experimental bus map, I wasn't aware of that one!

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#78

Post by derhuerst »

Elzear wrote: post #26
YLE118 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the minimetro feel! I thought it was live too, I wonder if there's a way to do that? I like that you can see both the s and u bahn, though I kind of wish the abstract map would carry over.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!! The "live mode" is already developed using hafas-client[1] and VBB-API[2]. I just asked VBB to give me API access, I'll release the feature when I get it. If you are interested, VBB already made a live map[3] 1: https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client 2: https://www.vbb.de/vbb-services/api-open-data/api/ 3: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/

Author of hafas-client here!

Do you know about v5.vbb.transport.rest's /radar API [1]? Because it wraps VBB's de-facto-open unofficial API [2][3], it doesn't require authentication or even signing a contract.

If you have problems using it, please get in touch with me!

[1] https://v5.vbb.transport.rest/api.html#get-radar [2] https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client/tree/5.25.0... [3] https://github.com/public-transport/transport-apis/blob/8e05...

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#79

Post by dewey »

culturestate wrote: post #35
NeoTar wrote: post #16

I really like it! Well done! - As others have mentioned, it seems dodgy on Firefox. The button to switch between U-Bahn and S+U mode doesn't seem to work at all on Safari (?) - Completely unreasonable request, but it would be cool if it were to show the current engineering works - i.e. the U1 not running, and the temporary U12 taking over the western U2 and U1 If anyone else is a urban railways geek, then may I intro…

Another great one is https://www.worldmetro.io/map , which came out of a very cool Kickstarter project[1] that mashed up nearly every urban railway in the world into a huge, interconnected network. I bought one of the large 60” x 45” maps and I still sometimes sit and stare at it, trying to find the various stops where I’ve lived and worked over the years. 1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960956629/the-world-…

Looks like it's not available anymore, the website now mostly talks about NFT and minting stations. Shame, would've loved to buy a paper map.

Re: Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin

#80

Post by jarek83 »

janfoeh wrote: post #74

Buses and subway positions for Hamburg: https://hvv.live

I love it. I'm from Poland and lived for a while in Warsaw, where public transport also has all this kind of tracking, BUT the operator when asked about making this data available to travelers, he replied something like "Why would people need it? It's internal data and it will stay like that".
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