App shows real-time Metro train locations

Transit

App shows real-time Metro train locations

by David Alpert • December 5, 2010 11:36 am

Reader Alex sent along a new application that uses WMATA's open transit data to show a real-time map showing the location of trains in the Metrorail system.

Update: The link to the original site was inadvertently left off the original post. It's been added.

13 comments

Tags: data openness, maps, Metro, WMATA

Next train display built on WMATA APIs (Oct 2, 2010)
WMATA will open up real-time data to developers (Jun 8, 2010)
Google Street View now shows bus stops (Dec 27, 2010)
It's here! Metro posts transit data online (Mar 23, 2009)
Metro "punts": Will release transit schedule data for Google and others (Mar 11, 2009)

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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Also of some potential interest to readers is an app I wrote for the iPhone called Tunnels DC. It uses the same WMATA transit data to find nearby Metro stations using the iPhone's GPS and displays when the next trains will be arriving. It also lists some other helpful information like elevator and escalator outages and which stations have cell phone service. More information here: http://bit.ly/tunnelsdc

by Tim Schmitz on Dec 5, 2010 12:01 pm

Overloaded I suppose?

by RS on Dec 5, 2010 12:03 pm

I don't see anything. No image, no link.

Kind of like Metro.

by Steve on Dec 5, 2010 12:33 pm

@Tim_Schmitz

Wow, that looks really awesome. Any plans for an Android version?

by Lucre on Dec 5, 2010 1:59 pm

It's really slow. Also, is there a direct link somewhere so I can bookmark it?

How is it done? I was going to try to do this based on analyzing all of the nexttrain/PIDS data, but never got time to do it.

by Michael Perkins on Dec 5, 2010 2:40 pm

@Lucre: Thanks! Android isn't in my immediate plans, mostly due to my inexperience with the platform, but I've had a lot of interest in an Android version, so I'm looking into it!

by Tim Schmitz on Dec 5, 2010 3:00 pm

I downloaded Tim's app for the iPhone. It's nice.

by Steve on Dec 5, 2010 3:14 pm

Lucre - I've recently discovered the "DC Metro Transit" app for Android and have been really happy with it.

by Stefanie on Dec 5, 2010 3:15 pm

Direct link is http://dctransitguide.com/metrorail/metrorail-map-and-train-locator/

Would have been nice if GGW had included that from the beginning.

by djb on Dec 5, 2010 3:58 pm

I've added the link. It was an oversight in the original post. Sorry.

by David Alpert on Dec 5, 2010 4:53 pm

There is some information about the algorithm used on the linked web site (basically, interpolation based on the same information found on the PIDs). Also, the scalability oversights causing the app to be slow/down earlier should be taken care of.

by Alex on Dec 5, 2010 5:30 pm

Based on the information at The Unofficial D.C. Transit Guide the data comes from WMATA's ROCS (Rail Operations Computer System). WMATA has been running an app on their internal network for some years nopw that generates this map.