Maidstone & Kent Bus Tracker

Real-time bus tracker that polls the UK BODS AVL feed and renders vehicle locations on a Leaflet map. Includes a local-only configuration UI, vehicle list, and movement-based trail coloring for quick at-a-glance status. Real-time bus location around Maidstone (and further afield).

• Live vehicle polling with adaptive backoff on errors.
• Leaflet map with colored markers and optional trails.
• Filterable table by route or vehicle ID.
• Operator name lookup via the Traveline NOC dataset.
• In-browser configuration panel for local tuning.

npm install
export BODS_API_KEY="your_key"
export BODS_BOUNDING_BOX="0.510,51.266,0.531,51.279"
npm run dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:3000.

Environment variables:

• PORT: server port (default 3000)
• HOST: server host (default 127.0.0.1)
• BODS_API_KEY: required API key for BODS AVL data
• BODS_BOUNDING_BOX: minLon,minLat,maxLon,maxLat
• BODS_OPERATOR_REF: optional NOC operator code
• BODS_LINE_REF: optional line ref (route)
• BODS_FORMAT: xml (default) or gtfs (GTFS-RT parsing is not implemented yet)
• BODS_POLL_INTERVAL_MS: minimum poll interval (default 12000)
• BODS_POLL_MAX_INTERVAL_MS: max backoff interval (default 60000)
• NOC_FORMAT: auto, json, or xml (default auto)
• NOC_TIMEOUT_MS: NOC fetch timeout (default 20000)
• NOC_CACHE_TTL_MS: NOC cache TTL (default 86400000)

The UI configuration panel updates the in-memory config on the server. It is intended for local use only.

• GET /api/vehicles: latest vehicle snapshot plus polling status
• GET /api/config: current configuration details
• POST /api/config: update config (JSON body)
• GET /api/operators?codes=OP1,OP2: operator code to name map

• Requires Node.js 18+ for the built-in fetch.
• Frontend assets are served from public/.
• Server entrypoint is src/server.js.

• BODS AVL datafeed: https://data.bus-data.dft.gov.uk/
• Traveline NOC dataset: https://www.travelinedata.org.uk/noc/