Real time map of trains in Japan

[kkihara]

It's real-time in the sense that it's based on the published schedules of the train lines, but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual locations of the trains.

It's not useful at all, but it's a cute visualization and because trains in Japan run very nearly on schedule during normal operating hours, it will be mostly accurate the vast majority of the time.

edit : In the "About this site" link on the upper right, it explains that :

① The site uses the scheduled operating information and displays the location the trains are running on the map at the current time.

② The contents, URL, etc., can change at any time or can be made no longer publicly available.

③ & ④ The site adminstrator takes no responsibility, etc. You are responsible for your own actions.

In the other information section, the author specifies that it's for Japan only and that the icons used are representative for those lines.

[kineticflow]

>but it's not "real" real-time because it is not based on the actual locations of the trains.

It's "real-time" enough in Japan because trains in Japan are almost always on time.

[nourishingvoid]

This is a fun visualization, but as you mentioned it's inaccurate precisely when you need it most (when there's a delay). Actually, some JR stations in Osaka already have an indicator that shows when incoming trains are stopped at the previous station or whether they are in between stations.

[exDM69]

Actual GPS data from trains in Finland: http://www.vr.fi/fi/index/aikataulut/junatkartalla.html (finnish only)

Close the dialog box that opens, it's a search for trains or stations on the map.

[bergie]

I did a somewhat similar mobile app for Maemo using the open data we have of Helsinki trams: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/buscatcher-never_miss_another_tram...

Some relevant public transportation data sources for Helsinki: http://www.hri.fi/en/data/hsl-reittiopas-api/

[gedejong]

And the estimated locations of dutch trains: http://kubus.mailspool.nl/spoorkaart/

[bdz]

Real real time map of trains in Hungary (based on GPS data) http://vonatinfo.mav-start.hu/

[geekstrada]

I like this one of the trains in Switzerland. http://simcity.vasile.ch/sbb/

[mnutt]

This is really cool; a few years ago I wanted to do this for the published schedules of NYC's subway. At the time it involved scraping schedules from the MTA website's horrendous HTML, but now it looks like they've completely reversed direction and have it in an accessible format. Interestingly, they have real-time data for buses, but not for the subway.

[LeafStorm]

On the subway, it's probably harder to get data to the TVS since it would be transmitting from underneath tons of concrete. They could tie it into the train control system, but they probably don't want to connect that to the Internet to prevent the case that someone could take it over and mess with the subway.

[minikomi]

Related .. Something I've been working on to learn d3.js A table of "happenings" on the Tokyo metro line for the last 30 days scraped hourly from the Tokyo metro site. The animations are a bit pointless but you get the idea!

http://poyo.co/metro

Yesterday's typhoon really messed things up!

[diasks2]

Very cool! Do you have any data on how long the "happening" lasted? Would be neat if you could somehow incorporate that into the size of the circle in the left graph, or instead of showing the number of happenings on the right graph, you could instead show the downtime.

[Zakiazigazi]

This is pretty neat (even if not realtime :))

I'd really love to know where the data is coming from.

I played[1] with a similar idea a few months ago creating a simple visualization just for fun that is more like a timelapse of the "veins of tokyo" and was curious about the distribution of trains during the day. In my case, I just scraped the tokyo metro site's timetables, but it's quite a bit of work to fit the data (identify the trains with rapid/semi-rapid trains that skip stations, etc) - it's still not easy to know when a train would be waiting at a station, the best I could have done is guess from the average time between stations, which also does vary throughout the day. Eventually only a few lines made it in.

[1] http://zaki.asia/metro

[zevyoura]

This reminds me of University of Michigan's magic bus service: http://mbus.pts.umich.edu/

Magic bus is run off of actual real-time data, though, unlike this example.

[Zirro]

Here's one for Sweden (passenger-trains only): http://www.tagkartan.se - It's also based off on schedules but updates with delays as soon as they are announced.

[pkandathil]

Apparently in Japan the cell phone reception is great even on the trains. Why don't ppl download an app where it figures out your gps location, speed and based on that figures out what train you are on. Then it finds others in the area with similar info to verify your data and puts it on a map. That way you know where the train is if you have these groups of people moving very fast close to the gps location of the railway tracks.

[NiekvdMaas]

Here is one of The Netherlands: http://kubus.mailspool.nl/spoorkaart/

[huskyr]

I always wondered if this one is based on real-time information or based on the scheduled times as well.

[Infuscu]

This is a live map of the trains in and around the area of Copenhagen, Denmark:

http://byenspuls.dsb.dk/byens_puls/ByensPuls.html

The colour of the marker reflect its punctuality, thus yellow means 5-10 minutes late etc.

[arrowgunz]

It's somewhat similar to http://whereisbart.com/

[timmaah]

Built this for the start up I work for. Fun challenge to predict the arrival times.

http://uvm.blirpit.com/ (No buses will be active for the next ~6 hours)

[interro]

Real time map of buses in Vilnius, Lithuania: http://stops.lt/vilnius/#bus/map It also shows the speed of bus if you click on a blue bubble.

[twism]

Real time arrival times for Boston subway (where available).

http://wheresthembta.com

I've never found the maps data viz particularly helpful.

[endersshadow]

Except for our beloved Green Line. The oldest subway in the country doesn't even know where it is--so it can't tell us.

[coderhs]

In my firefox 12.0, Linux OS

The train disappears after some time..

[whalesalad]

Protip: don't try this in chrome ... the endless auto-translation of the bubbles (which happens each time a train moves) kills it completely. Looks decent in Safari though. Pretty neat!

[wideroots]

looks great on IE9 as well :)

[alpb]

Anyone got it working on iPad? It seems like nothing is moving on the map. Maybe Japanase servers have a long Round-trip time, I don't know why.

[alpb]

Edit: needs zooming.

[jpswade]

UK version: http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/