Is a FlightRadar for Public Transportation possible?

[joshua doromal]

Hi all!

Newbie student here digging around trying to solve a wicked problem with public transportation for class. I stumbled upon a research paper that led me to a sight that led me here. I first thought that the Dutch Public Transportation had no GPS' installed because why else are timetables wrong and why don't they have trackers (like FlightRadar, an app that tracks all airplanes) in the GVB app or on Google Maps. 

I later found out that many if not all have GPS systems on board. If that's the case, why aren't posted online? Can a theorhetical FlightRadar for Public Transportation be made?

Truly hope this is the right place to post my inquiry. 

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Joshua Doromal

[Stefan de Konink]

Hi Joshua,

On Friday, May 20, 2022 3:51:39 PM CEST, joshua doromal wrote:
> Newbie student here digging around trying to solve a wicked problem with
> public transportation for class. I stumbled upon a research paper that led
> me to a sight that led me here. I first thought that the Dutch Public
> Transportation had no GPS' installed because why else are timetables wrong
> and why don't they have trackers (like FlightRadar, an app that tracks all
> airplanes) in the GVB app or on Google Maps.
>
> I later found out that many if not all have GPS systems on board. If that's
> the case, why aren't posted online? Can a theorhetical FlightRadar for
> Public Transportation be made?

Done by many students since 2013 ;) OVradar.nl looks down at this moment,
but we still have;

<https://ovzoeker.nl/>
<https://spoorkaart.mwnn.nl/>

You might be interested in this thesis too:
<https://wp.unil.ch/citadyne-news/2020/05/tracking-public-transport-in-real-time/>

If you want to explore something new;

You could combine AIS (vessels) data with the timetables of ferries to
create a new datastream out of it.

--
Stefan

[joshua doromal]

Thank you so much Stefan! 

Eye-opening stuff!

--

Josh

[joshua doromal]

With the sights you sent, it still makes me wonder how the timetables can still get wrong

and still have errors if everything is already being tracked. Localized error perhaps?