Train movements between stations are simulated based on the expected speed between two points and not based on GPS tracks, sadly, so it's not very useful if you want to check whether your train is stuck (say, due to traffic or signal failures). Notice that the circles representing trains occasionally move at unnaturally high speeds -- this presumably happens when a train enters a station and its location is corrected. It would certainly be useful to be able to see the actual real-time location of a train and not just the approximate location (and I'd assume that at least some of the maps from other countries are indeed based on real-time GPS data!) -- this exists for buses in Oslo (only available in the public transport company's app, unfortunately) and it's nice to know for sure whether you'll have to run to catch your bus or not.
(Several years ago when looking into the possibility of creating a real-time train map, I read that certain train operators and/or the national government considers publishing the exact locations of trains to be a security risk, so unless opinions on this have changed I don't have high hopes that we're getting it soon.)
Would love to see something similar for Switzerland. This page (referred to in another thread): https://maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/ is NOT a live map, just an animation based on timetable data.
There were a couple of instances last summer where SBB went belly up (remember that day when a locomotive caught fire while standing still at Altstetten station?), and total chaos ensued. It'd be nice to see which trains are late (in realtime) and which routes to take to avoid problem spots. Around Zurich you usually have at least 2-3 options between points A and B, so people could just be rerouted to the next best route.
While it would be nice to have on a map, live rerouting is already handled on the sbb/google maps/citymapper/etc apps (afaik they all have realtime data).
I couldn’t find any info if it is based gps data or time tables but I have checked and seen my train that was late being stopped where it in reality was (waiting for another train that was late to pass on a 1 track line)
Transport tycoon in the Netherlands is played by 4 or 5 competitors. You can see make out their coloring and general area of operation on this map too.
Fun fact: In the Netherlands you have to make sure you 'checkin' to the right transportation company, some stations have 3 checkin posts. Very annoying and embarrassing and error prone.
> Fun fact: In the Netherlands you have to make sure you 'checkin' to the right transportation company
In Italy there are competing fast trains on the same track, all with a red color. With people on the station selling tickets to only one of them. ... So I asked them for the first train from Vincenza to Milan at 13:30... That is 14:44...I bought the 14:44 ticket from "Italo". Then found out there was a "Trenitalia" at 14:04! ...
Sorry mister.. this was OUR first train..not THE first train.
The icons being tiny pictures of the actual trains is cute, but makes the map quite confusing to look at!
Edit: I just noticed that the marker style changes if I choose something other than "Equipment" from the map style dropdown, selecting "driving/stationary" certainly makes it a lot more readable.
Real cool, thanks for the link! Wish we had something similar for our national railway network here in neighboring Romania.
And one good thing that will be brought by us (Romania) finally getting into Schengen this year (God- and Austria-permit) would be that the rail connections between Romania and Hungary would become much more common, especially the regional ones. I can see a Salonta - Békéscsaba ride on this map that I had no idea about, hopefully we'll get much more of those into the future.
I think the big feature here is that the biggest visual factor is the punctuality. Funny seeing this posted here as Hun railways are famous for delays/antiquated tech/bad management, even though it seems rather fine currently.
When viewing the German version, almost all regional trains have delays, a lot 20-30 minutes even. Having the huge swarm of trains all as red dots overlaid on the country map would be an easy, damning visual representation of the situation.
I'd love a list of other services like this - or even more ambitiously executed than this - globally. I'd bet there are some really interesting uses of open transport data.
Berlin and Brandenburg in Germany: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ (need to enable it in the top right corner). Includes ICE, regional, suburban trains, subway, trams, buses and ferries.
It helps that in areas where there's a high concentration of trains on the go they just put a single pin that says "N trains" - the ones that have one pin for every train are a bit busy and can be sluggish
Train movements between stations are simulated based on the expected speed between two points and not based on GPS tracks, sadly, so it's not very useful if you want to check whether your train is stuck (say, due to traffic or signal failures). Notice that the circles representing trains occasionally move at unnaturally high speeds -- this presumably happens when a train enters a station and its location is corrected. It would certainly be useful to be able to see the actual real-time location of a train and not just the approximate location (and I'd assume that at least some of the maps from other countries are indeed based on real-time GPS data!) -- this exists for buses in Oslo (only available in the public transport company's app, unfortunately) and it's nice to know for sure whether you'll have to run to catch your bus or not.
(Several years ago when looking into the possibility of creating a real-time train map, I read that certain train operators and/or the national government considers publishing the exact locations of trains to be a security risk, so unless opinions on this have changed I don't have high hopes that we're getting it soon.)