Transit Tracker - Greater Montréal, Greater Toronto, Sherbrooke and Lévis

[FelixINX]

Transit Tracker
transittracker.ca

 

Transit Tracker is a web application that collects and show most transit vehicles in the greater Montreal and Toronto area. It's a great app to get an overview of the transit system, with hundreds of buses, trains and trams on a single page.

 

Please, do not use Transit Tracker for transportation purpose. It's designed and intended to be used as an online sighting tool. Data is not always accurate and could be delayed. If you are looking for schedules, check with your local agency or use an app like Transit or Chrono.

 

Transit Tracker supports multiple agencies:

• Société de transport de Montréal
• Réseau de transport de Longueuil
• Société de transport de Laval
• exo (trains and buses)
• Toronto Transit Commission (buses and trams)
• Brampton Transit
• Burlington Transit
• Durham Region Transit
• Hamilton Street Railway
• York Region Transit

 

A single map for all vehicles
You have the control over what you want to see. In normal times, you can often see more than 2000 buses and trams in the greater Toronto area!
There is also a dark mode if it's your preference.

 

Details on each vehicle and links to other applications
Detailed trips information is available for most vehicles (with exception for STL and TTC).
There are also some great contributors in the CPTDB community, and their works are easily accessible from Transit Tracker.

• Thanks to @Gerbil for GTFS Tools - access related trips and tracking history for STM.
• Thanks to @Blue Hybrid Bus and @West Island Transit Fan for FleetStats - access statistics on the STM fleet.
• Thanks to all wiki contributors who take time to document our transit systems.

Data is available to download in CSV format and is released under the Creative Common 4.0 CC BY license. Data is provided by transit agencies.

 

If you found a bug, want a new feature, or suggest a new region or agency, feel free to contact me or post on this thread!
Are you a developer looking for the source code or want to contribute to the app? It's on GitHub : https://github.com/FelixINX/transit-tracker. An API is also available if you want to integrate Transit Tracker data in your app, contact me for more details.

[SMS]

Note: I would like to apologize to FelixINX and other board members for accidentally deleting the original thread and posts. I had hoped to merge them as requested and sadly in the process they were lost. 

Please continue to post all questions and concerns here. Let's all wish FelixINX the best of luck for this great new app. I wish this was around ten years ago!

[FelixINX]

v1.0.1 now online:

• exo trains are now on the map
• Current status is now displayed as text
• The website now uses Google Analytics to measure hours of traffic in anticipation of an increase in refreshing time
• The system now records statistics on the number of vehicles (data not shown)

Roadmap:

• Button "show on map" in table
• Loading indicator
• Improve loading time
• Auto refresh
• Increase of refresh time during peak hours

If I missed something please tell me!

[ReusableNoseTissue]

The changes are great. I really like the current status on text, as it makes the app so much more practical when wanting to know about its activity. Just out of curiosity, do buses on "service provisoire" recieve a status or a sort of special number when they are active? I am not completely familiar with GTFS.

[Gerbil]

5 hours ago, ReusableNoseTissue said:

The changes are great. I really like the current status on text, as it makes the app so much more practical when wanting to know about its activity. 

To clarify, I'm pretty sure the current status is just if the bus is in motion or stopped. "In transit" means "in motion", so that's probably the field they use on the STM website when deciding to show the round bus logo or the bus logo with the directional arrow: 

We can't see buses that are "En Transit". 

I like it as a precursor to the button though: 

It might say "STOPPED_AT45.48017-73.59454" and I can just look up coordinates on google.

-

Would it be possible for us to select which fields we want to search on the search bar? The addition of "In transit" and "Stopped at" means we can't search for school or industrial extras anymore because "in transit" contains an "I" and "stopped at" contains an "E". Similarly, the trip field contains a lot of numbers that interfere when we want to search by route. If we could search by route only, it would solve that problem.

It's no big deal if you can't though, since it's easy to just download the excel file and search with that.

[Frozen Yogurt]

The new version looks good!

Would it be possible to sort out route numbers like 10, 11, 12, etc. instead of 10, 100, 101, etc.?

Again, thanks for doing such a great work!

@GerbilIf I understand correctly "In transit to" and "Stopped at" are to tell if a vehicle is serving a stop or is en route to the next stop. I'm pretty sure even stopped bus display the arrow if they are along the route curve; those who are not on the curve (ex: on a detour) is a circle instead.

[anyfong]

This is such an awesome tracker! This really makes commuting much easier! And it's really accurate for spotting unusual buses on a route, for instance, I got to see 38-006 on the 24 which is my first time seeing a 38-xxx on it.

[ReusableNoseTissue]

15 hours ago, Gerbil said:

To clarify, I'm pretty sure the current status is just if the bus is in motion or stopped. "In transit" means "in motion", so that's probably the field they use on the STM website when deciding to show the round bus logo or the bus logo with the directional arrow: 

We can't see buses that are "En Transit". 

I like it as a precursor to the button though: 

It might say "STOPPED_AT45.48017-73.59454" and I can just look up coordinates on google.

You are right. It displays movements rather than its activity. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[FelixINX]

15 hours ago, Gerbil said:

To clarify, I'm pretty sure the current status is just if the bus is in motion or stopped. "In transit" means "in motion", so that's probably the field they use on the STM website when deciding to show the round bus logo or the bus logo with the directional arrow: 

We can't see buses that are "En Transit". 

I like it as a precursor to the button though: 

It might say "STOPPED_AT45.48017-73.59454" and I can just look up coordinates on google.

-

Would it be possible for us to select which fields we want to search on the search bar? The addition of "In transit" and "Stopped at" means we can't search for school or industrial extras anymore because "in transit" contains an "I" and "stopped at" contains an "E". Similarly, the trip field contains a lot of numbers that interfere when we want to search by route. If we could search by route only, it would solve that problem.

It's no big deal if you can't though, since it's easy to just download the excel file and search with that.

You are right about STOPPED_AT and IN_TRANSIT_TO. I will add a notice about this in the info section in the next update. Depending on the driver, you can sometimes see "En Transit" buses, if the driver stays on the same route in the iBUS system.

-

I added your suggestion to my todo list it should be quite easy.

14 hours ago, Frozen Yogurt said:

Would it be possible to sort out route numbers like 10, 11, 12, etc. instead of 10, 100, 101, etc.?

With the current plug-in I use for the table, it dosen't look possible. This is cause by the École (E) and Industrie (I) trip wich make the table sort them in strings instead of numbers. I might put the École and Industrie in another collumn to solve this, would it be ok?

[anyfong]

2 hours ago, FelixINX said:

You are right about STOPPED_AT and IN_TRANSIT_TO. I will add a notice about this in the info section in the next update. Depending on the driver, you can sometimes see "En Transit" buses, if the driver stays on the same route in the iBUS system.

-

I added your suggestion to my todo list it should be quite easy.

With the current plug-in I use for the table, it dosen't look possible. This is cause by the École (E) and Industrie (I) trip wich make the table sort them in strings instead of numbers. I might put the École and Industrie in another collumn to solve this, would it be ok?

Maybe adding a zero in front of a two digit route would help sorting route numbers in the correct order? For instance instead of 36 it would be 036.

[Frozen Yogurt]

14 hours ago, FelixINX said:

With the current plug-in I use for the table, it dosen't look possible. This is cause by the École (E) and Industrie (I) trip wich make the table sort them in strings instead of numbers. I might put the École and Industrie in another collumn to solve this, would it be ok?

Sure! Or maybe like anyfong said, a "0" can be added, whichever way works.

[FelixINX]

Update v1.1.0

• Better list with improved search
• Show on map button
• Some improvement under the hood

In the next version the Ecole and Industrie will be moved to another column. The app will also be available under a “Progressive Web App” which will add cache (better loading time) and add to the home screen (for Android and desktop only). Auto refreshes is also coming. Also, the data will be pulled every 1 minute between 7 am-9 am and 5 pm-8 pm.

—

Since November 14th, the app now logs the number of bus and train each 5 minutes. Here is some highlights:

• The more trains tracked simultaneously: 20 trains (the summit has been reached several times)
• The more busses tracked simultaneously: 1094 buses, 20/11/2018 8:05 am
• The fewer buses tracked simultaneously: 67 buses 15/11/2018 4:40 am
• During a certain period each day, no bus is tracked. This period is between 3 am and 4:30 am. Exceptionally, it was between 0:10 am and 1:10 am November 21st. I am wondering if it’s a “break” for the iBUS system.
• The average bus tracked simultaneously is 513.
• Feel free to play with the data, the file is below!

count.csv

[Frozen Yogurt]

Hey FelixINX, good job for that update, I like how the table is now altering between gray and white rows, it's easier to read now.

Is it only me or the map has problem loading? I would now only get a tiny portion of the map loaded, and when I click on a bus the map goes to the top left side of the screen.

[FelixINX]

1 hour ago, Frozen Yogurt said:

Hey FelixINX, good job for that update, I like how the table is now altering between gray and white rows, it's easier to read now.

Is it only me or the map has problem loading? I would now only get a tiny portion of the map loaded, and when I click on a bus the map goes to the top left side of the screen.

You are right it seems to be a problem. I'll try to push a fix tomorrow morning.

[webfil]

15 hours ago, FelixINX said:

You are right it seems to be a problem. I'll try to push a fix tomorrow morning.

The tiles appear when going fullscreen. Tested both on Opera 48.2.2331 (Android) and Firefox 63.0 (Debian-build). Seems to be a Leaflet-side issue with the buffer size.

[FelixINX]

Sorry for the delay! The bug should now be fixed with version 1.1.1.

@Frozen Yogurt and @webfil please confirm that the problem is now fixed.

It was not a Leaflet issue, just a conflict between Leaflet and the tabs I use (Bootstrap). To fix this, the loading screen is now on top of the map.

[Frozen Yogurt]

I confirm it's fixed now. Thanks

[Matt Demers]

One issue I have been experiencing some times is when I sort by route ascending, I get 10, 100, 101 instead of 10, 11, 12 etc. Is it a glitch or am I doing something wrong?

[webfil]

On 11/14/2018 at 4:16 PM, Frozen Yogurt said:

Would it be possible to sort out route numbers like 10, 11, 12, etc. instead of 10, 100, 101, etc.?

 

On 11/29/2018 at 11:38 PM, Matt Demers said:

One issue I have been experiencing some times is when I sort by route ascending, I get 10, 100, 101 instead of 10, 11, 12 etc. Is it a glitch or am I doing something wrong?

I agree that a sortable column route column would be a great addition. I don't know if it's as easy as it is in a GIS to create an integer column based on text values, but it is sure frustrating to see that king of sorting.

[FelixINX]

6 hours ago, webfil said:

On 11/29/2018 at 11:38 PM, Matt Demers said:

One issue I have been experiencing some times is when I sort by route ascending, I get 10, 100, 101 instead of 10, 11, 12 etc. Is it a glitch or am I doing something wrong?

I agree that a sortable column route column would be a great addition. I don't know if it's as easy as it is in a GIS to create an integer column based on text values, but it is sure frustrating to see that king of sorting.

It's a known problem that is only present when school and industrial buses are present. For example, right now, the sorting is "normal". Technically, this is not a bug because when you have number and letters together, this king of sorting is normal. That being said, I am testing multiples solutions but I didn't find (yet) the best solution that don't compromise the data and the speed of the app.

[FelixINX]

Christmas update is there! Nothing really big, but there are some preparation for the next update wich will most of what was requested. My final exams are this week, but expect a release after Christmas, by the end of the year.

Happy holidays to all!

[Gerbil]

Good luck with the exams!

-

What do the symbols of the  green and red buses with the Santa hats mean?

 

[FelixINX]

10 hours ago, Gerbil said:

Good luck with the exams!

-

What do the symbols of the  green and red buses with the Santa hats mean?

 

Thanks !
 

The santa bus (or train) doesn't do much. It's a random vehicle each time you load the page. I had to make a function for the next update and to test it, I did use the christmas version. It a way for me to test if the function add loading time. But also, if you are on the santa bus, you're probably lucky 

[FelixINX]

v1.2.0 is now live!

For 2019, enjoy a better version of your favorite app. On the menu :

• New table engine, with better sorting (with ecole and industrie buses) and search by collumn
• Trains now have the headsign (direction) and short_name (train number) in the popup. This will later be extended to buses, when the STM release a new GTFS version (the current one is too big)
• The app is now a progressive web app wich means the app is now cached (better loading time) and can be added to homescreen (Windows and Android only)
• Optional : If you accept the prompt, the map will display your location on the map 
• Featured images for a bit more color! Send me your pictures of your sightings and I will add them (with credits!)

Happy new year to everyone!

[Frozen Yogurt]

Hmm I like some aspects of the update but also I wonder:

- Could we get back the ability to display 100 lines at once? I find it practical and use it all the time

- The trip column should be wider so that all items can be fully displayed

- Nitpick: the CPTDB link on the "help" tab is the deleted topic 

Otherwise I really enjoyed using this app, I use it everyday! Thanks for sharing that and happy new year!