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Comment by csmattryder | Hacker News Reader

This looks pretty neat, could see some good applications being built with this over the Google Maps API!

One thing to note, is that I can't see whether the Gem handles the source being 403/404'd for example, is that something that is handled by the source?

And it was great reading the code, I'm new to Ruby and currently writing my first Gem, it looks like a highly viable route for bus tracking (no pun intended!), very pretty code!

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http://transportapi.com/ has real time public transport data available everywhere it's provided in the UK, with a much simpler API than other sources (eg SIRI XML feeds from network operators).

Which is awesome. Except if you want to hack on the code yourself. Plus there's a cost involved.

Currently not no. The data is scraped from a site and not read from a nicely formatted API. This is definitely a todo though. Add an issue or better yet, add a pull request :)

You should use the official API.

http://travelinedata.org.uk/nextbuses.htm

TFL provide proper APIs

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/syndication/defaul...

Only for London. While that may appeal to many people, most people in the UK don't live in TFL's area. Traveline are much harder to get API data out of.

You can email them to ask for a test API key up to 1000 hits a day. If you sign a contract you can use 180,000 API hits every six month period for free. Beyond that there is a cost of £1.50 per 1000 API hits.

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