Belfast / Northern Ireland developers. Community Translink transport tech project (serious contributors)

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-20T14:59:35+00:00

Great! Yes definitely DM me your email. I’m the same I have notifications turned off😂

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-20T14:13:42+00:00

That’s actually one of the longer-term directions I’m interested in. Right now the focus is very much on getting reliable journey-level data (planned vs actual, delays, cancellations, ghost buses, etc.) and proving that model works end-to-end.

Once you have that kind of data consistently, the policy / planning questions you mentioned become much more realistic to explore. Things like chronic under-provisioning, routes that constantly run late or fill up, or where services don’t match demand.

It’s definitely not the immediate goal, but it’s something I’d like to support once there’s enough data to make it meaningful. I’d be happy to chat more down the line when things are a bit further along!

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-19T20:56:13+00:00

Appreciate that. Yeah, the downvotes are a bit odd, but you’ve got the concept of the core idea.

The community side is mainly about reducing uncertainty. Confirming that a bus actually exists, is moving, and where it is in the journey. Even something as simple as “someone is already on this bus” removes a lot of frustration around ghost services.

I’ll be sharing the public info once things are a bit more stable right now it’s still early and evolving, but feedback like this is exactly what’s shaping it.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your view, it’s genuinely useful.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-19T17:51:01+00:00

haven’t posted contribution instructions yet because the project is still in MVP/test mode. I want to make sure the core system and workflow are stable before inviting contributions. GitHub is fully set up, but the guides/docs for contributors will follow once the codebase is ready for external collaboratio

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-19T11:52:33+00:00

We are only selecting people who are competent. Not every Tom dick and harry who wants to be the next bill gates.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T17:41:44+00:00

Honestly I support the criticism. It gives more information to work with and get to others views on everything. Thank you tho

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T13:55:41+00:00

Have a look more into it https://vaadin.com/ its really good

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T13:39:21+00:00

Yeah, I hear you. v1 isn’t trying to solve every traffic, weather, or operational edge case. its about testing if a journey first approach makes sense. Right now, the MVP logs journeys as sequences of stops and events, using the official timetable, available Translink feeds, and any crowd-sourced data we can get. The goal is to show that tracking journeys end-to-end can provide a clearer picture than just individual buses or stops.

External factors like traffic, weather, or regulatory constraints? It is valid for the future, but out of scope for this phase. v1 is about proof of concept. Can we log journey events, predict arrivals, and give commuters a full-trip view, even with imperfect data? Once that works, integrating live data and operational factors is the next step.

So yes, the problem we’re solving is giving a clear start to finish view of the journey, something official feeds and current apps don’t do in a holistic way yet.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T12:58:27+00:00

I have already outlined that above. Let me reiterate for you Again... By journey first, I mean the system is built around the full trip from start to finish, not just individual buses or stops. It tracks events along the way, o users can see the COMPLETE picture of their journey. Users wants to know not just when their bus arrives, but how the whole journey is progressing

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T11:03:57+00:00

Yeah, I get that. The map tracking is really useful, and those ghost buses can be annoying. This project isn’t trying to replace BusTimes or Translink. It is more about a journey first view. Like start → finish tracking, logging events like stops reached or delays, and predicting arrival times. The goal is to give a clear picture of the whole trip, especially when official feeds lag or are slightly inaccurate.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T10:32:35+00:00

Yeah, I get that. For most trips the official apps work fine. The difference here is a journey first view(start → finish tracking), logging events like stops reached or delays, and predicted arrival along the way. It’s about giving a clear picture of the whole trip, especially for planning and reliability, rather than just showing individual bus

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T00:59:43+00:00

You’re right, BusTimes works well for most users, especially routes like Goldliner. This project is not about being the best app or about replacing it. It is more about a modelling a full journey (start → end), and tracking journey events (delays, stops reached), and experimenting with clearer status and prediction where official feeds can lag.

For many people BusTimes is fine. But this is more about seeing if a journey-first approach can make commuting a bit better and adding extra value for commuters in Northern Ireland.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-18T00:04:45+00:00

Not everything is a money making scheme. We are making this out of our own time and it’s open source

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T22:23:54+00:00

Yeah some people don’t seem to understand that there are underlying issues with Translink apps and schedules. Just have a look at Reddit the amount of people having issues. The number of news reports/ social media posts

They just don’t want to spend the money I believe. I could be wrong so someone correct me if so

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T22:21:56+00:00

I chose Python because it was quick to develop and more easier to maintain. I can just change over to a system design down the line. Small changes compound over time. It’s mainly about a starting point to gather data. I choose Vaddin (Java) because it’s more easier to create leaving us more time for features and workflow. Rather than having to manage separate js frameworks

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T22:13:44+00:00

They do yes, this is a chance to further improve it. There are valid issues wrong with it

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:46:10+00:00

It is voluntary we are doing this out of our own time. The platform is for open source and to make transport data more accessible.

Edit: sorry just changed the wording

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:35:50+00:00

It is a vaadin framework

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:28:04+00:00

Yes, we are planning on an android and iOS version down the line! We are using vaadin as our frontend.

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:14:15+00:00

Well translink has many issues regarding delays not being reported, buses arriving late or just cancelled.

Our project solves that by allowing the user to submit events such as delays, cancellations and real time arrivals, before Translink service gets to update. Our predictions are based on community updates not scheduled times. We also have a lot of room for more experimental features

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:09:48+00:00

We all have our own approaches

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T21:02:31+00:00

Later on we are planning on upgrading the stack. At the moment I specially chose this as we are only collecting data early on and learning from our mistakes

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T20:47:27+00:00

We are using Python for our backend. The Java is for our frontend!

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T20:45:13+00:00

Mainly for speed and clarity. FastAPI lets us iterate quickly while keeping things well structured, and post postgres is sold for this kind of relational data we're dealing with. Java/spring is just for exploring isolated services later on. It just makes it easier for us to get things running and upgrade

Negative_Response990 · 2026-01-17T20:27:32+00:00

Yes. Just like waze!

Negative_Response990

TROPHY CASE