Watch Melbourne's public transport system move in real time

[ozbob]

Melbourne Age --> Watch Melbourne's public transport system move in real time

A new visualisation reveals the incredible intricacy and coordination of a transport network that moves hundreds of thousands of people in Melbourne each day.

The 'viz' places a dot on the map for every tram, train and bus on the network, and then moves them in real-time through the network as Melbourne's commuters wake, go to work, return, go out for the night and go to bed.

It's like removing a watch face and seeing the gears inside whirr. Or like watching blood pulse through a creature's capillaries ...

^ Check it out, interesting. Useful adjunct planning tool as well.

[bcasey]

Yeah, I saw that website last week. The concept is not that new, there is a youtube channel, STLTransit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHfYQ8t76F170hip6NZjVw, that visualises a day's worth of services for many cities. The main difficulty is showing the visualisation in a pleasing and informative way, without too much clutter, which I think this website has done very well.

For Melbourne, I don't think they are using any real-time information (I don't think PTV has a real-time feed yet, like Translink does, although I have heard there might be one in the near future), just the static gtfs timetables. However, they do mention in the about section, that they do use real-time information where available.

http://tracker.geops.ch/?z=12&s=30&x=17041344.2481&y=-3184197.8678&l=transport

Here is the link to Brisbane's network. If you zoom in on the CBD, its very clear to see the large number of buses that go across the Victoria Bridge during peak hour