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Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin
- rob74 4y agoNice! Would be more realistic (and more Mini Metro-like) if the trains actually stopped at the stations though. Also, the trains don't have to disappear and reappear at the terminal stations, they could just stay there until they are scheduled to go back - after all, that's what they do in reality as well... Any chance that the source could be made available ;) ?
- pvg 4y agoIt's linked in the (somewhat easy to miss) about page https://xn--ubhnchen-1za.vercel.app/en/about https://xn--ubhnchen-1za.vercel.app/en/about
- ant6n 4y agoThe solution with fade out / fade in is pretty clever. Short layovers will cross-fade automatically, but you don’t need complicated internal information about which train continues from one run to the next. Stopping would be neat, but may also be visually messy.
- rob74 4y agoIt doesn't have to be complicated though, and it also doesn't need additional information. The trains could simply be "parked" at terminus stations, and when a train is scheduled to depart in the other direction, check if a train is available at the station - if yes, use it, if no, create a new one.
- pantalaimon 4y agoStrangely S-Bahn does stop at stations, U-Bahn does not. Maybe a difference in the source data?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- belter 4y agohttps://github.com/lzear/ubahnchen https://github.com/lzear/ubahnchen
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- akie 4y agoIt's super smooth on Chrome, but it's doing (say) 1 frame per second on Firefox.
- hk__2 4y agoTry clicking on the S+U on the right. In Chrome it’s super smooth on the U view, but somehow when you switch to the S+U one it’s very laggy.
- threatripper 4y agoSame for me (FF103.0.2 on Ubuntu 22.04)
- meinaccount00 4y agoWorth checking that Firefox is (also) using the GPU correctly.
- threatripper 4y agoHow would I check that?
- ale42 4y agoWorks fine on Firefox for me
- threatripper 4y agoWhich version on which OS?
- ale42 4y ago103.0.2 on Windows 10, with NVIDIA GPU
- artogahr 4y agoSame for me, even I set "layers.acceleration.force-enabled" to true. Chrome and Chromium are smooth. EDIT: Turning "High Resolution" (in the settings of the webpage on top right) off and on seems to fix the issue somehow? It's smooth now, but reloading takes it back to choppy.
- radiosnob 4y agoVery nice. Given the smoothness, I first thought this was real-time:) As someone who lives in Berlin, I didn't know there was an open API for the VBB. I'll have to have a look at it. And loving the Minimetro vibes! (Running this on android 10 on a OnePlus 7pro - runs smooth in Chrome)
- YLE118 4y agoAgreed on the minimetro feel! I thought it was live too, I wonder if there's a way to do that? I like that you can see both the s and u bahn, though I kind of wish the abstract map would carry over.
- rob74 4y agoThere is definitely a way to do it, actually the Munich S-Bahn has a realtime map : https://www.s-bahn-muenchen.de/fahren/live-map https://www.s-bahn-muenchen.de/fahren/live-map - not as smoothly animated though, and I'm not sure if the data used there is publically available. As an Easter Egg, the "50th anniversary" train (photo here, but the article is paywalled: https://railcolornews.com/2022/04/26/de-expert-s-bahn-munchen-celebrates-50th-anniversary-with-colors/ https://railcolornews.com/2022/04/26/de-expert-s-bahn-munche...) is highlighted on the map.
- Elzear 4y agoThanks a lot for the feedback!! The "live mode" is already developed using hafas-client[1] and VBB-API[2]. I just asked VBB to give me API access, I'll release the feature when I get it. If you are interested, VBB already made a live map[3] 1: https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client 2: https://www.vbb.de/vbb-services/api-open-data/api/ https://www.vbb.de/vbb-services/api-open-data/api/ 3: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/
- derhuerst 4y agoAuthor of hafas-client here! Do you know about v5.vbb.transport.rest's /radar API [1]? Because it wraps VBB's de-facto-open unofficial API [2][3], it doesn't require authentication or even signing a contract. If you have problems using it, please get in touch with me! [1] https://v5.vbb.transport.rest/api.html#get-radar https://v5.vbb.transport.rest/api.html#get-radar [2] https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client/tree/5.25.0/p/vbb https://github.com/public-transport/hafas-client/tree/5.25.0... [3] https://github.com/public-transport/transport-apis/blob/8e057df977e68da0c891ef07a4f236c572dc0d9c/data/de/vbb-hafas-mgate.json https://github.com/public-transport/transport-apis/blob/8e05...
- hubraumhugo 4y agoWell executed side project with a great name! :) Where do you get the data from?
- NeoTar 4y agoIt's mentioned in the 'about' page (click the 'i' link) - https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32647603&goto=item%3Fid%3D32647227%2332647603 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32647603&goto=item%3Fi... > Schedules are extracted from the GTFS data of the VBB (loaded on Fri, 26 Aug 2022 13:11:26 GMT) which contains arrival time and departure time of every hour of every day. The movement of the train is simulated at constant speed between stations.
- Markoff 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- detaro 4y agoubähnchen.vercel.app seems quite memorable
- Elzear 4y agoThe link I posted was https://ubahnchen.vercel.app https://ubahnchen.vercel.app but, because there is a redirection, HackerNews changed it automatically. You can also memorize ubaehnchen.vercel.app
- Markoff 4y agofair enough, but then the HN is the problem and I have no way knowing you posted correct (memorable) link
- Elzear 4y agoSorry you faced downvotes. No offense taken.
- Markoff 4y agoI think the lesson here would be using only ordinary characters in domain names (then what HN does would not matter), if you (and I mean anyone, not you in particular) advertise domain with special characters people will be confused because some companies advertise domain with special characters while you should actually read it with normal characters and not literally plus there is quite a stigma that these special characters are used for malicious purposes to pretend they are different sites. Dunno what's situation in Germany but here in Czechia where we also widely use special Latin characters in language, but they are pretty much non existent from domain names, though sometimes you can see them and they mean you should strip the domain name in your head and type it without special characters.
- NeoTar 4y agoI really like it! Well done! - As others have mentioned, it seems dodgy on Firefox. The button to switch between U-Bahn and S+U mode doesn't seem to work at all on Safari (?) - Completely unreasonable request, but it would be cool if it were to show the current engineering works - i.e. the U1 not running, and the temporary U12 taking over the western U2 and U1 If anyone else is a urban railways geek, then may I introduce you to CartoMetro - https://cartometro.com/ https://cartometro.com/ - an amazingly detailed map of various (mostly French) urban rail systems (although sadly lacking Berlin!)
- hk__2 4y agoOpenRailwayMap is also worth a mention: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
- culturestate 4y agoAnother great one is https://www.worldmetro.io/map https://www.worldmetro.io/map, which came out of a very cool Kickstarter project[1] that mashed up nearly every urban railway in the world into a huge, interconnected network. I bought one of the large 60” x 45” maps and I still sometimes sit and stare at it, trying to find the various stops where I’ve lived and worked over the years. 1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960956629/the-world-metro-map https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960956629/the-world-me...
- dewey 4y agoLooks like it's not available anymore, the website now mostly talks about NFT and minting stations. Shame, would've loved to buy a paper map.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoRelated: https://www.gleisplanweb.eu/index-e.php https://www.gleisplanweb.eu/index-e.php http://sporenplan.nl/ http://sporenplan.nl/
- Polyphonie 4y agoIt’s working on my iOS 15 iPad: https://i.imgur.com/BAhNQJd.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/BAhNQJd.mp4
- pushreply 4y agoso cool! nice work! maybe Munich is next? :)
- fock 4y agothe S-Bahn there actually has a DB-provided live-map https://s-bahn-muenchen-live.de https://s-bahn-muenchen-live.de I don't know, if they have an open API though (Google of course gets access. Which is......)
- Angostura 4y agoLive map showing trains on the London Underground https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/ https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- purecode 4y agoThere is a real Berlin live map of subway, bus and railway at: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ by the operator. Seems no english version available, you have to - click upper right corner "Livekarte" - click on the menu again "Livekarte" - select means of transport: radio buttons for subway, railway etc - zoom in to see subway
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kenniskrag 4y agohttps://www.vbb.de/en/vbb-travel-info/ https://www.vbb.de/en/vbb-travel-info/
- purecode 4y agoThanks! I used the search to find it but always got to the German version.
- derhuerst 4y agoNote that this just interpolates the vehicles' positions based on their delay, which in turn is calculated based on periodic pings that the vehicle sends AFAIK. So the map does not show realtime positions in the same sense as e.g. HSL's trip planner does [1][2]. In fact, the location and speed of a vehicle can be very off. Personally, I loathe this map, because it gives an impression of accurate data, even though it isn't that precise. VBB gets credit for providing supposedly reliable data, even though they could (and should, given amount of tax money spent) provide much better data! [1] In the departures section on the left, tap on one of the upcoming departures to see the vehicle in realtime: https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=en https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=e... [2] https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/vehicle-positions/ https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/veh...
- sccxy 4y agoLooks great! If author wants some inspiration then this tokyo map is awesome: https://github.com/nagix/mini-tokyo-3d https://github.com/nagix/mini-tokyo-3d
- jansan 4y agoIn the Shinjuku city hall many years ago there was an animation showing how population desitiy changes in Tokyo during one day. It was absolutely mindblowing, but I have never been able to find it online. If someone happens to know where I can find this animation I would be really grateful.
- Elzear 4y agoThanks for sharing this! It will definitely be helpful, as I am considering updating my map to use WebGL.
- codethief 4y agoWow, it even includes weather (rain) and airplanes.
- philholden 4y agoI did something very similar to this in 2012: http://philholden.me.uk/kraya/routemap/ http://philholden.me.uk/kraya/routemap/ I wanted to simply draw and SVG of the bus route map. The timetable had the lat long of stop positions. I was using d3 so having drawn the map it almost zero effort to animate the busses. It was just a standard transition with a delay and a duration.
- Vogtinator 4y agoAn official live map with subway and tram positions in Nuremberg: http://infoportal.vag.de/InfoPortal/ http://infoportal.vag.de/InfoPortal/
- kioleanu 4y agoHa! I worked on that, nice seeing it here
- divan 4y agoWhat's the purpose of animation here? It seems to have no information about actual train position, or am I missing something?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Closi 4y agoI think it is just a toy :) But the trains are sort-of-actual positions based on the time in the top right hand corner and the latest estimated arrival times, but time is moving forwards at 50x speed.
- miniwark 4y agoThe problem with Berlin is than there are many operators for public transport by train: * U-Bahn, for the subways (underground & aerial) * S-Bahn, for sub-urban lines (mostly aerial) * Traway in est-Berlin A map, live or not need at least to combine the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, (and if possible the tramway too), because you generally need to use both networks (with the same ticket) to travel. Staying in only one of the network is just not practical.
- dewey 4y agoThis exists, built by the VBB: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647874
- derhuerst 4y agoNote that this also just interpolates the vehicles' positions based on their delay, which in turn is calculated based on periodic pings that the vehicle sends AFAIK. So the map does not show realtime positions in the same sense as e.g. HSL's trip planner does. [1][2] [1] In the departures section on the left, tap on one of the upcoming departures to see the vehicle in realtime: https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=en https://reittiopas.hsl.fi/terminaalit/HSL%3A1000105?locale=e... [2] https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/vehicle-positions/ https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/apis/4-realtime-api/veh...
- lqet 4y agoHow about this one? It also includes the rest of Germany: https://travic.app/?z=13&x=1493233.2&y=6894127.0 https://travic.app/?z=13&x=1493233.2&y=6894127.0
- japanuspus 4y agoThank you for posting this: This also has the Danish real time data presented in a much cleaner way than the various web services of our local operators.
- derhuerst 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- janfoeh 4y agoBuses and subway positions for Hamburg: https://hvv.live https://hvv.live
- jarek83 4y agoI love it. I'm from Poland and lived for a while in Warsaw, where public transport also has all this kind of tracking, BUT the operator when asked about making this data available to travelers, he replied something like "Why would people need it? It's internal data and it will stay like that".
- quantisan 4y agohttps://tracker.geops.ch https://tracker.geops.ch similar app for many major cities around the world. Sharing for ideas.
- amaccuish 4y agoNice, only thing is it's not currently accurate. The U1 and U2 have temporarily combined into the U12.
- Quanttek 4y agoExtremely slow for some reason in Firefox on Mac OS for me
- jeroenhd 4y agoSame here. A profile suggests that most native time is spent rendering the backdrop shadow of the text rendered to the canvas, and most of the remaining CPU time is spent on the drawText Javascript call. Looks like Mozilla has something to optimize!
- runxel 4y agoTotally unusable in Firefox on Windows 10 as well.
- seanw444 4y agoSame story in Librewolf on Arch Linux.
- fs111 4y agoThis has exited forever for all parts of the VBB https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ You can turn on individual forms (S-Bahn, U-Bahn, Bus, Ferries etc) of tranport on the right hand side menu.
- bugmen0t 4y agoReminds me of the official live map "Livekarte" at https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/
- probably_wrong 4y agoFor those like me who just see a regular map, click on "Livekarte & Multi-Mobilität" on the right, then "Livekarte", and then "An".
- bergenty 4y agoOn a tangent, buying a ticket for a tourist is a real pain on the Berlin system. You have to know what a zone is, what specific station etc. would be great to have a standard fare like in NYC.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoMini Metro IRL. Kudos!