Swiss trains in real time

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Every CFF passenger train moving along its scheduled path on a mashed-up Google map is now accessible to see via the internet thanks to the inventiveness of a Dutch programmer who lives near Lausanne. Swisstrains.ch combines the Swiss national railways’ timetable and a Google map to bring a realistic and informative virtual ride on the trains. It only works because of the well-deserved punctuality of Swiss trains.

Hover the cursor over one of the red dots that represents a train floating along a red railway line, and the train’s number, its point of departure and departure time, as well as its destination, destination time and average speed comes up. A pop-up dialogue box provides information on each train currently going to or from a determined station. Click on the “follow” button and the train whips you along its path in satellite view in real-time.

The application’s designer, Robert de Heer works at advertising sales company, PubliGroupe in Lausanne as a senior business developer for on-line development projects, and rose to fame when he designed an internet application as a journalist that joins Dutch crime statistics to a map. It is still very popular in the Netherlands, reports Swiss-German newspsaper Tagesanzeiger 14 December.

Swisstrains.ch is almost two years old, but is recently starting to make news. GenevaLunch asked de Heer when he would be able to incorporate real-time information like train delays and accidents that disrupt traffic. He says that recent publicity has generated interest from serious programmers who might help him. The married father of two has little time to dedicate full time to what started out as his hobby.

De Heer says he is working on an iPhone application of the site that would display a map with the trains driving around the selected area, moving on the tracks, and when selected, it would display the train’s origin and destination. He would like to add wider information, too. When asked about incorporating networks in Geneva (unireso) and canton Vaud (Mobilis) onto the Swisstrains.ch information platform, he says that he would need the networks’ timetables and a lot of time to work on the project, unless the networks help.

Links: Swisstrains.ch, Tagesanzeiger

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