Live Animated Trains!

TRAVIC is a visualization of public transit around the world, using live feeds where available and otherwise using schedule data.

TRAVIC is a collaboration between Geops, a German geospatial company and the University of Freiburg. The major and even minor transportation authorities in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand are covered along with a few other cities on other continents. When zoomed out to a continental scale, you can see how well covered Europe is.

Here is the coverage in my neck of the woods.

As you zoom in further you see the vehicles. At the local scale they begin to move. Here are some still frames from Philadelphia.

 

I chose Philadelphia partially out of my personal bias, but also because it's one of the few places in North America that actually labels the commuter trains by destination, adding a layer of interest.

The larger orange dots are for the Broad Street Subway (Orange Line) and the smaller blue dots are bus routes. Clicking on a vehicle brings up schedule information as seen in this screen shot from Berlin

I'll leave with an animated shot from America's hardest working transit system. Watching the trains going under the East River is the best part.

Thanks to Urban Demographics for alerting me to this site.