Stadtnavi is based on the Digitransit platform, an open-source journey planning application. Digitransit combines several areas such as public transport, walking, cycling, and car routing into a modern route planning service. Digitransit was developed by Helsinki Region Transport (HSL), the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (Väylä), and TVV LMJ Oy. It is based on OpenTripPlanner (OTP), a backend service for intermodal routing. Digitransit has several running instances in Finland and other countries, including, Münster, and Ulm in Germany, Turin in Italy, and several cities in Estonia and Romania.
The platform provides availability data in real-time, which significantly increases the attractiveness of the service. In addition to the web-based platform herrenberg.stadtnavi.de, the Trufi Association has developed the mobile app version of the software based on the Trufi app. A collaboration between German and Bolivian volunteers, the Trufi Association is an NGO that promotes sustainable mobility and developed a multimodal route planner project in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2019. The Trufi Association collaborated with the Stadtnavi project to develop a native app for iOS and Android that allows users to plan and execute their journeys using different modes of transport.
The project brought together expertise from different countries and regions, and the resulting platform is a testament to the benefits of collaboration and open-source development. The Stadtnavi project is just one example of the growing trend of open-source development in the field of sustainable mobility. Open-source solutions such as Digitransit and OpenTripPlanner are becoming increasingly popular in the development of journey planning applications, and their use is spreading to cities and regions around the world.
Image source: stadtnavi.de