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Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

map.signalbox.io

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Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#141

Post by marksomnian »

munk-a wrote: post #133
pjc50 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, we don't know if this is the case, but one way to do this is not to ask the phones but the cells . The mobile network has to know where the phones are by cell; the cells are often small relative to the speed of the train; there are also cells installed specifically to improve service on trains, or provide a base station to the train wifi, or for communications to railway staff. If you get a bunch of phones switch…

You're missing the fact that the system is also divided into explicit signal blocks and those blocks do report train presence to a centralized system[1]. I am not certain if they want to share that information, but if someone got serious about building a system like signalbox I'd expect that NetworkRail would either offer their data, a degraded version of their data on a lag for security reasons, or consider those se…

That data is in fact made publicly available by Network Rail: https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/TD

though interpreting it isn't the easiest thing in the world...

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#142

Post by munk-a »

marksomnian wrote: post #141
munk-a wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the fact that the system is also divided into explicit signal blocks and those blocks do report train presence to a centralized system[1]. I am not certain if they want to share that information, but if someone got serious about building a system like signalbox I'd expect that NetworkRail would either offer their data, a degraded version of their data on a lag for security reasons, or consider those se…

That data is in fact made publicly available by Network Rail: https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/TD though interpreting it isn't the easiest thing in the world...

That is fair - though at least they've well defined their standard. It'll be easier than trying to parse that data out of HTML with regexes at least.

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#144

Post by jimnotgym »

ant6n wrote: post #138
jimnotgym wrote: post #137

Cool app with some useful features. Here is my custom map of UK trains that are affordable https://www.map.signalbox.io/?location=@52.86376,-2.32537,4.... And here is my map of UK trains that aren't subsidised despite being 'private companies' https://www.map.signalbox.io/?location=@52.86376,-2.32537,4.... And here is a map of trains that use the fact they are moving quickly through the air to provide some semblance…

Hey wait a minute, there isn't any train on any of these maps!

Thank you for confirming that it is working correctly

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#145

Post by Havoc »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #11
AJRF wrote: post #3

> Signalbox's technology identifies the train a device is on by matching a snapshot of smartphone data to a train’s trajectory data. The technology uses advanced algorithms works even with severely degraded data. We are able to pinpoint a smartphone to any type of train without background location tracking or hardware. Hmm, that's...interesting?

I wonder what app has allow location on all the time and is feeding them their data

Some TFL stations and trains have WiFi that has tracking in the ToS.

The relatively benign kind though. They use it to figure out congestion and station use etc

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#146

Post by greengreengrass »

IshKebab wrote: post #108
greengreengrass wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not affiliated with the site, but it's almost certainly just the Train Describer feed from Network Rail to observe headcodes stepping through berths, and then doing some proprietary interpolation within berths to guess where the trains are, probably using fairly coarse inputs like train class, rolling stock type and line speed. It's possible it's not even doing that, and they have just built a model that observes typ…

Do trains have real time position sensing and reporting now? Feels to me like that should be something that could (and should) have been done 20 years ago at least. You don't even need GPS - even wheel-based odometry should work very well. Visual odometry can be used to detect wheels slipping if necessary. Hell you could probably count sleepers.

I believe some Tube stock uses wheel revolution counters to track where the train is and trigger announcements, although a lot of signalling will be going over to using balises to tell the trains where they are (if not already) and to provide supervision.

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#147

Post by ButlerianJihad »

munk-a wrote: post #133
pjc50 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, we don't know if this is the case, but one way to do this is not to ask the phones but the cells . The mobile network has to know where the phones are by cell; the cells are often small relative to the speed of the train; there are also cells installed specifically to improve service on trains, or provide a base station to the train wifi, or for communications to railway staff. If you get a bunch of phones switch…

You're missing the fact that the system is also divided into explicit signal blocks and those blocks do report train presence to a centralized system[1]. I am not certain if they want to share that information, but if someone got serious about building a system like signalbox I'd expect that NetworkRail would either offer their data, a degraded version of their data on a lag for security reasons, or consider those se…

Before he was hired by a San Diego-based defense contractor, my maternal grandfather worked on the railroads as a pipe-fitter, and he designed and built for me a high-quality Lionel model railroad in his home, before he passed away. It even had those little smoke-generating tablets that you could drop into the smokestack. I was only six years old.

This year, I was curious about whether I could track freight trains in my region or nearby, in real-time, and perhaps more details like what sort of cars were linked in the train, how many locomotives, what sort of freight they were carrying, etc.

After a few fruitless searches for this tracking info, I realized that the same info that would be "recreational" for me would be "operationally valuable" to any domestic terrorist cell or motivated insurrectionist, as well.

Trains derail all the time, we are told, and trains are robbed blind increasingly often, so I am sure there is some sort of illicit/underground tracking that takes place already, but for now, I must content myself with noticing trains using my own eyes and ears. The freight line next door is inhibited from sounding their horns except in emergencies. And thankfully, I find freight-train and light-rail noise to be calming and soothing, even at 3:30am...

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#149

Post by tomhow »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #32

[flagged]

Please don't post off-topic flamebait on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: I've reviewed your last few dozen comments, and too many of them are inflammatory with invocations of race politics. Other recent comments are low-substance snark. We need all this to stop. I can see from earlier comments that you know what kind of discussion is appropriate and inappropriate on HN. You've made good comments in the past so I don't want to ban you, but we can't let this kind of activity continue. HN is only a place where people want to participate because others make the effort to contribute positively and observe the guidelines. Please make an effort to raise the standards rather than drag them down.

Re: Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network

#150

Post by mhandley »

marking-time wrote: post #148

Cool ... I'm a sucker for maps. I checked at 4:41 PM PDT (utc-7) and saw a _bunch_ of trains around London. What are all those people doing riding trains at 12:41 AM London time?_ [edit: added PM]

Coming back from the pub? At least when I'm on a train at 12:41am, that's usually the reason.
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