Session Notes about Realtime Vehicle Positions #OTCC2026

otcc-2026-vehicle-positions.md

Realtime Vehicle Positions on Open-Data

Session notes about realtime vehicle position sharing at Open Transport Community Conference 2026

Problem and Motivation

• People enjoy using map-based applications, especially for navigation and in public transport

• Predicted ("realtime") timetable information are not precise in several cases

• Displaying the realtime vehicle positions offers an option for passengers to verify the prediction data

• Psychological effect of approvability for passengers with low barriers

  • Already known from transport services like Uber

• Display short-time or unplanned detours transparently to passengers

• Reduction of complaints by passengers aka "where is my bus?!"

• Stop displays show the estimated time until a vehicle arrives at the stop

  • When prediction fails, the information "in 1min" remains there for several minutes
  • The real question for passengers might be: Where is the bus currently, maybe in a traffic jam?

• However, it is hard to get the real vehicle position information in realtime as it is not very common to share these data for transport agencies

• Most map applications displaying vehicle positions interpolate the positions based on prediction data

  • Leads to "flying" vehicles when a prediction update arrives
  • Provides a nice overview or simulation, does not really add some value to passenger information

Challenges

• Transport agencies sometimes bring up several ludicrous arguments against sharing vehicle positions. Best of ...
  • Passengers could track the drivers then, we might run into a privacy problem
  • Vandals and grafitti sprayers may track, where their "artworks" are driving
  • Ability to track the speed of vehicles and create statistics about exceeded speed limits
  • Protection against terrorism
• However, there're some real arguments to be considered ...
  • Vehicles which are not in service but displayed on map may help burglars and vandals to find some targets
  • Displaying realtime vehicle positions on cross-border trips may be unwanted by governments
  • Publishing and maintaining the required backend systems is cost-intense
  • Accessing the data out of AVL systems is accompanied by high license costs of software distributors
  • There're no researches about the impact on passenger information at all
• Transport agencies don't have knowledge how to access the information
  • Most transport agencies use some kind of AVL system to track their buses, but there's no idea about how to make the information available
  • Granting access to the AVL system is not possible of course
  • Lack of knowledge about realtime-capable technology and standards
  • The benefits of having those data publicly available is not known and there's no motivation for the transport agencies to think about those data
• Human costs for managing and maintaining the required backend systems and publishing applications may be intense
• Some AVL systems block publishing the positions when the vehicle goes off-route (which would exactly be one of our use cases...)
• Many transport agencies may try to protect themselves from thinking about unconvential ways of passenger information and never really thought about the pro's and con's objectively

Solution Ideas

• Get in touch with transport agencies and convince with benefits and minimum viable products (MVPs)
  • Don't enforce everything at once, bringt up smaller steps
  • Show a MVP for the transport agency, also stating that no sensitive data become published
  • Prove that handling this type of data is managable
• Use crowd-sourced data by passenger based realtime tracking apps instead of paying for licenses of the system distributors
  • Transitous uses vehicle positions when available as fallback for prediction when no prediction data are available
  • In the US, GoogleMaps is capable of tracking passengers and generate vehicle positions implicitly
• Check other available data sources. On a modern public transport vehicles, there're many possible sources with autonomous GNSS position tracking functionality
  • AVL systems and controlcentres as classic data sources
  • Dashcams, passenger counting systems, ticketing validators, C-ITS on-board units, on-board WiFi routers
• Spread knowledge about established data standards for publishing vehicle positions
  • GTFS-RT, ITxPT, VDV435, VDV453-VIS, SIRI-VM
• Make data controllable and focused to add value for passengers
  • Geofencing or route based filtering for published vehicle positions
  • Remove person related information securely
  • Which information are really required, which information are nice to have?

ToDo's

• Contact transport agencies already publishing the realtime vehicle positions for getting in touch about the benefits they see, as they invested some money
  • In Germany: Hochbahn (Hamburg), NEW (Mönchengladbach), ...?
  • International: ENTUR
• Create awareness for the benefits of realtime vehicle positions in passenger information, e.g. with a short leaflet which can be handed to passengers
• Do some research to collect objective findings about the impact of realtime vehicle positions in passenger information
• Take concerns about publishing realtime vehicle positions seriously, but do not overprioritize them
• Stay in contact and network with other enthusiasts about that topic!