Mobility becomes a daily challenge. In Belgium, a recent evaluation has highlighted that the time wasted in traffic jam represent losses of 1,5 to 2% GDP! This is the situation Finland wants to avoid, with Digitransit, a next generation journey planner produced by the Finnish Transport Agency and specifically focused on the optimisation of public transport.

This tool pinpoints the user location and shows nearby routes, public transport stops and timetables, in real time! Real time means that recipient will see the location of buses and trains, as well as the accurate times of arrival at the stops. No more time wasted waiting. The service filters unnecessary information and tells what is going on around you and how to get to your destination more conveniently. Initially limited to Helsinki and large municipalities where it is the most useful, the real time service will in the future cover the whole country.

The Transport Agency invites developers to join in developing the next generation journey planner aimed to be used by hundreds of thousands of people every day. They can develop the service further as a whole or improve just one part of it. They can make use of the code, i.e. for creating something similar in another country.

The code is open-source and dual-licensed under the EUPL v1.2 and AGPLv3 licenses. Dual licensing means that users and developers may download and inspect the software code, adapt it and redistribute it freely to other users, for example in other Member States, under the EUPL or/and under the AGPL. Why this licence choice?

The Digitransit software is typically distributed on line as a service, and both licences (EUPL and AGPL) state that on-line access is a form of distribution.

Both licences are “share alike” or “copyleft” meaning that software copies and derivatives will stay covered by the original licences. This is a protection against appropriation.

In case of combinations with other software components covered by other copyleft licences (including the GPL and the AGPL), the EUPL provides more interoperability. Moreover, it is multilingual and expressly covered by European Law. On the other hand, the AGPL is better known in other parts of the world.

 

 

More information:

Digitransit project https://digitransit.fi/en/

Digitransit interface code: https://github.com/HSLdevcom/digitransit-ui