This site maps realtime positions of metropolitan trains operated by Metro Trains Melbourne using public data distributed by Transport Victoria.
Use information on this site as a guide only. Do not rely on its accuracy. This site is not endorsed by the DTP or MTM.
Realtime data including positions, service, arrival and departure information are sourced from GTFS Realtime APIs made available by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning and consumed by other third party software such as Google Maps. As such, the quality of the information on this site is subject to the DTP data's quality (and any upstream outages, omissions and errors). It is the same data used by the PTV app and website, but they do not use the public API layer so the PTV app may still be able to display realtime information when outages affect this and other third party apps. Vehicle positions appear to be updated in the API about once a minute.
Arrival and departure information is sourced exclusively from the PTV GTFS Realtime - Trip Updates - Metro Train API and does not include static timetable data (such as from the GTFS Schedule dataset) or the PTV Timetable API. For more complete arrival and departure information, visit the PTV or other sources.
Features include:
If the site has not been used in 15 minutes, on initial page load it might take up to a minute for the backend to spin up and start retrieving data. This is a limitation of the hosting that I am currently using but you are free to host it yourself.
Most functionality and interaction should be fairly conventional. The map can be interacted with using the buttons on the left or mouse/trackpad/touch gestures, and supports fullscreen, rotation, zoom, panning and returning to initial view.
The compass button's functionality differs between mouse and touch. When using a mouse, click on the compass, hold and drag to the right to rotate the map. Click and release on the button to return to te default rotation (north pointing directly up).
When using a touchscreen, the compass button has three modes which are cycled through when pressed. To return to the default rotation (north pointing directly up), press on the button until you get there.
You can zoom in and out using the plus/minus zoom buttons or by pinching on the trackpad or touchscreen. You can also zoom to a rectangle that you can specify by holding shift while you click and drag.
Use the search button to search for a station. When you search for a station or click on the station marker, there are buttons to Set, Add and Filter. These change which lines are displayed on the map. Consider examples with an initial state of the Cranbourne and Frankston lines visible and hitting a button on Huntingdale station (on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines).
This can be useful if you want to see trains running between two stations. Suppose that I need to take a single train from Caulfield station to Parliament station. To view relevant trains, I can first Set lines on Caulfield station then Filter lines on Parliament station (removing the Frankston line).
Alternatively, suppose that I wish to take the train from Box Hill station to Dandenong station, although to do so I must transfer in the city. To view relevant trains, I can first Set lines on Box Hill station then Add lines on Dandenong station.
You can show and hide station markers, individual lines, line groups and presets using the layer control in the top right. Performance degrades a bit the more station and train markers there are, so filter the lines that you need and hide station markers for the best performance.
In addition to PTV and operator websites and apps, there are a number of third party projects, commercial and not, that use the PTV API.
Some other projects, covering more public transport modes, include:
This site was initially inspired by the Ventura Tracker mobile app by BusMinder. I wanted a similar app for the train network that could select a line and see its route, trains and stations on a live map with a simple and intuitive interface. Nothing that I could find perfectly fit or focused on that so I made this - maybe it will work for you too.
By Nhan.
GTFS Schedule and GTFS Realtime data and metropolitan train pictogram © State of Victoria (Department of Transport and Planning) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Rolling stock information and codes from Metro Trains Melbourne and Vicsig.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap.
Built using Leaflet.
See the README for full software details and build instructions.