Details of London Underground’s all night service enter the realms of open data
Transport for London (TfL) has updated its open data APIs to make it possible for developers to incorporate details of the newly launched Night Tube service into travel apps.
The real time data is available free of charge through the organisation’s developer portal. While the timetable is an extension of the existing data for the London Underground service, TfL has also made the map of the night service – which does not apply to the whole network – available.
It said the APIs will be updated as other lines follow the Central and Victoria in providing the service.
Phil Young, head of online at TfL, said: “By making information about the Night Tube services easy for customers and developers to access, we hope to make it easier for everyone to enjoy all that London has to offer and support the thousands of Londoners who have to travel to or from work during the night.”
Its developer blog says it has introduced a ‘service type’ distinction between the daytime and night services, both of which can be retrieved through a metadata request and the values linked to the endpoints of routes. This makes it possible to show which service is active for a particular point in a route.
App growth
TfL has said that more than 8,500 developers have now signed up to access its open data, which powers more than 500 apps. The API also contains live travel information on buses, river bus services and Trams, accessibility and car park information for all TfL stations and live travel information on the status of roads.
Earlier in the year it announced plans to open up data on crowding at Underground stations and road closure for app development.
It also pointed out that, since June, customers have been able to obtain disruption warnings on mobile devices through its Twitter alerts service. People can opt in for automatic alerts, personalised for specific times of day.
Image by Jcornelius, CC BY-SA 3.0 through Wikimedia
