Harry Wood, Software Engineer, TransportAPI.com TransportAPI provides UK public transport data with live and timetable information for bus, train, and tube, available to developers through an easy to use API. UK transport data is a complex and shifting landscape. In this workshop we'll talk through some of the challenges we're facing, and how we're working to solve them to take the pain away for developers (inviting more feedback and suggestions from the API community!). We'll look at the resulting API and a tour of the different data offered, some examples of how it might be used, and some bespoke work we're doing for clients. - See more at: http://www.apiconuk.com/apiconukschedule#sthash.gdIvEBWy.dpuf

1. Exploring UK bus and train data with...
transportapi.com
developer.transportapi.com

2. Origins
● Maps and geodata
● OpenStreetMap
● Geo-academics
● Open Data

3. Open Data Mapping Experiments

4. Transport!

5. Info screens
Web apps
Mobile apps
Demand for data
● Bite-sized chunks
● Nicely formatted
● Taming complexity

6. Ruby on Rails
● RESTful URLs
● Model/View/Controller
● ActiveRecord

7. ...an API for transport?
From
To
Go!
A
B
“journey planning”

8. Buses, Trains, Tube
Timetable and Live

9. Matrix
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live

10. Reference data
● Stops
● Routes
● Latitude, Longitude
● Codes / IDs
● Names (human)

11. Matrix
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Another column
Reference
Data

12. History
● Live data changes recorded over time
● Another column?

13. Matrix
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Reference
Data
History
But not just history of live...

14. Matrix
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Reference
Data

15. Journey Planning?
● Another column? Not really
● Drawing together data from different modes

16. Matrix
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Reference
Data
Journey Planning

17. Matrix
Bus
✓
✓
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Reference
Data
✓
✓ ✓
✓ ✓ ✓
✓ ✓ ✓
✓
Journey Planning
✓

18. Open Data Availability?
Bus
Train
Tube
Timetable Live
Reference
Data
Journey Planning

19. Tube

20. Tube lines
transportapi.com/v3/uk/tube/lines.json

21. Stations on the Circle line
transportapi.com/v3/uk/tube/circle.json

22. .html
transportapi.com/v3/uk/tube/lines.html

23. Tube live departures

24. “HTML API”
● Ruby on rails encourages
● Stripped down HTML
● “HTML API”

25. HTML navigation
● <a href='xxx'> links
● Navigation menus
● Fixed website structure
● Not flexible building blocks

26. Tube performance
platform indicators

27. Tube performance
24 hour clock diagrams

28. API key & App ID

29. developer.transportapi.com sign up

30. 3scale hit tracking

31. tube-radar.com

32. Bu s

33. near.json & bbox
transportapi.com/v3/uk/bus/stops/near

34. live bus at a stop
transportapi.com/v3/uk/bus/stop/490005646E/live

35. timetables
● timetabled departures
● matching the format of live

36. route line display

37. Grid Timetables

38. operators
Many operators
Operator codes inconsistent
1500 different bus operators

39. Bus data behind the scenes
Operators → Councils → Traveline regions → TNDS

40. TransXchange

41. TransXchange

42. TransXchange

43. Live bus feeds
● TfL for London
● Patchy elsewhere from Traveline
● Mismatched operators
● Fallback to timetable

44. tapi.mobi

45. Trains

46. Train Organisations (and politics)
Department For
Transport
ATOC
TOCs
ORR
Passenger
Focus
Network Rail National Rail
£5bn tax / year

47. Layers of train data ● Schedules
● VSTP
● Train movements feed
● Activation messages

48. Live train departures
transportapi.com/v3/uk/train/station/CLJ/live

49. train-radar.com

50. Journey planning
Traveline / TfL “MDV”
● XML → Restful JSON
● Geocoding – alternative
matches. StopIDs

51. TfL and Traveline "MDV"
● XML → Restful JSON
● Geocoding – alternative matches. StopIDs
transportapi.com/v3/uk/public/journey/from/postcode:
EC2A+4JE/to/lonlat:-0.13155,51.52798.json

52. journeymapper.org

53. car and cycle routing
cyclestreets.net
OSRM car routes

54. roadworks.org
tdf.roadworks.org

55. widgets

56. 'UK TravelOptions' iOS app

57. 'Tree Routes'
iOS app

58. Taxi Booking
iOS app

59. transportbuzz.com

60. Heathrow Airport info screens

61. IKEA info screens

62. TransportAPI “instance”
● Branding “white labeling” of TransportAPI
● Cloud Servers – Chef deployed
● Flexible traffic handling/restrictions

63. new unified web interface
handlebars, grunt, and bower

64. transportapi.js

65. Thank you
harry.wood transportapi.com

66. API
Nominatim
XAPI
Planet downloads
OpenStreetMap
Contributors
Editors
Extracts &
conversions
Tile servers
API