Category: News

DevelopersNewsProducts

How we built the TfL Customer API

on September 15, 2017

We are excited to launch our new TfL Oyster app on iOS and Android, which allows customers to top up their Oyster cards, purchase Travelcards and view their journey history. The app was launched last week, and has already received lots of great feedback. We wanted to offer you more insight into how we developed it.

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The TfL Oyster app launched last week – let us know what you think in the comments section below.

An API – or application programming interface – is a set of subroutine definitions, protocols and tools for building application software¹. We already have a wide range of public APIs, which provide information such as line status, bus status and journey information. To build a mobile application allowing customers access to their Oyster card data through, we needed to write a new API to support this.

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New open data: Busiest times at Blackwall Tunnel

on July 4, 2017

The Blackwall Tunnel (A102) is one of the busiest places on London’s road network. In recent years, journey times have increased and drivers can expect delays to their journey at some times of day. We’ve released this data to the open data community, to enable developers to build the information into their products.  

Our data shows the busiest times at Blackwall Tunnel so developers can include this information in journey-planning apps

What our data shows

*Follow this link to find the data.

1)    The busiest time in the northbound tunnel on a weekday is from 07:00 – 07:30. In heavy traffic conditions, drivers’ journeys could be 15 minutes quicker if they travelled between 06.30-07.00 instead of 07:00 – 07:30.

2)    The busiest time in the northbound tunnel on a weekend is from 13.30 – 15.00. In heavy traffic conditions, drivers’ journeys could be 15 minutes quicker if they travelled between 12.00-13.00 instead of 13.30- 15.00.

We have made this data available to the open data community so you can use it to create products which display the busiest times at the tunnel, allowing drivers to choose to travel outside of these periods or create products for planning quicker and more reliable journeys.

Tell us what you think

We encourage the community to provide feedback on our new data sets to help us continue to enhance and improve our open data products. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or on our tech forum.

DevelopersNewsTech Partnerships

Ticketmaster and TfL Hack Day

on June 19, 2017

It was great to be part of London Tech Week through the excellent Hack Day on Friday June 16, put together by the teams at Ticketmaster and Transport for London. With over 600 apps powered by our data in the market place, I always look forward to these events as it allows me to raise awareness of TfL’s open data approach providing the opportunity for organisations and individuals to develop their own creative solutions.

This has helped to form new businesses, create jobs and launch new customer-facing travel products, giving customers more choice on their devices. A great part of this process is that this type of event is open to everyone at no cost, so we saw students, corporate professionals, freelancers, academics and participants from other sectors.


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Facebook Messenger: TfL TravelBot

on June 12, 2017

We’re proud to introduce our Facebook Messenger TravelBot, which has the ability to provide updates on bus arrivals as well as Tube and bus status updates.

Through our two Facebook pages – the main TfL page and the London Underground page – we deal with a huge number of queries every day, and we wanted to make it even easier for customers to get our information on the Facebook platform in a way that’s fast and straightforward. With the open data in our Unified API already helping to provide live information on many services like third-party apps and Twitter alerts, we hope this will be another big step towards enabling customers to quickly and easily access the information they need via social media. 


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DevelopersNewsTech Partnerships

June 16: TfL and Ticketmaster London Hack Day

on June 9, 2017

As part of London Tech Week, TfL are teaming up with the market-leading ticketing company in the UK, Ticketmaster, to host a hackathon at their London HQ. Bring your ideas to life at the London Hack Day, hosted by TfL and Ticketmaster on Friday June 16.

Join us at our hack day in association with Ticketmaster on June 16, part of London Tech Week

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Your App – Use of TfL Design and Logos

on May 31, 2017

It’s great to see that there are now over 600 apps using TfL’s datasets to develop customer facing products, and these products have a huge role to play in helping people to move around the capital. The Digital Partnerships team at TfL continues to engage with developers through this blog, the recently launched Tech Forum, as well supporting the introduction of new data with recent examples including Cycle Superhighways, Cycle Quietways and busiest times at stations. We are also looking at ways to improve our data based on your feedback.

Northern ticket hall entrance to Kings Cross St. Pancras Underground station

If your app is using TfL’s registered trademarks or intellectual property, you should amend your design

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The TfL Tech Forum is Live

on April 7, 2017

We’re delighted to announce that the TfL Tech Forum is now live, and is ready for you to use right away. With more than 11,000 developers working with our open data to develop innovative products, the TfL Tech Forum will be a lively space where developers can connect with experts from the TfL Online team, providing a platform for discussion around all aspects of our open data and Unified API. With over 600 travel apps powered by TfL, it’s great to see new product features being developed, and a key area of focus is accessibility (see this previous blog) – we encourage you to develop new features for your product using our data.    

The TfL Tech Forum is now live and ready to use. Connect with our technical team and other developers to discuss all aspects of our open data and Unified API

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DevelopersInformationJourney PlannerNewsTech Partnerships

Data Themes #1: Cycling in the City

on April 6, 2017

We recently made available the route data for all our current Cycle Superhighways and the new Quietway 1 so developers can accurately map the existing cycle network in their apps, making it easier for cyclists to find and use these routes. The data will be regularly updated as more Cycle Superhighways and Quietways are completed in the coming years.

The promotion of these cycling routes is part of the delivery of the Mayor’s new blueprint for a healthy London, which will see increasing physical activity put at the centre of a wide range of GLA and TfL policy, setting out how it could transform the lives of millions of Londoners.  The new route data complements the extensive data we already provide on cycling in our API and as downloadable files. Here’s an overview of what’s available.

A Santander Cycles docking station: The promotion of cycling routes is part of the delivery of the Mayor’s new blueprint for a healthy London.

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Celebrating International Women’s Day with Women in Tech

on March 17, 2017

A quick look around any room of developers will suggest that women in tech are woefully underrepresented. In fact, this 50-odd percent of the population only take up around 16 percent of tech jobs, seemingly for historical, cultural and practical reasons.

That situation is reflected at TfL, although we have some strong initiatives that are designed to reduce this effect. Another way of balancing the imbalance is by strengthening the community we already have, so I was delighted to take small part in an afternoon as part of a week of activities, talks and events for International Women’s Day, which was organised by TfL’s internal Women’s Network and Siemens.

Charul Gupta, TfL Online’s Digital Product Manager, discusses the importance of gender diversity at the Women in Tech event.

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Accelerate Your Idea With Nitrous London

on March 17, 2017

We are delighted that Nitrous London is shaping an accelerator programme this spring, focusing on some key transport challenges.  Nitrous London work closely with fast growing startups bringing them to focus on a wide range of challenges in different industries from finance, transport to technology.

Nitrous London is looking for later stage start ups who currently or in the future can contribute to maximising capacity on the public transport network and/or across London’s roads. Ideally, the start-up would be open to using TfL’s data available at api.tfl.gov.uk

The programme supports sector agnostic companies to validate their proposition within TfL and the wider mobility market, including access to senior decision makers from industry. This will help establish product/market fit and pave the way for future collaborations.

I thought this might interest some of you and if it sounds like it’s worth exploring, please visit  http://www.nitrous.london/programmes/#/mobility/ or contact Nitrous London at team@Nitrous.London for more information.

Applications should be received by Friday 24 March to be considered.

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