You may remember Birmingham-based web developer Matthew Somerville for building a real-time trackable map of the entire London Underground network in 2010. If not, it’s ok, because he’s now done a ‘Live London Bus Map‘ that allows you to follow every single service currently running across the city.
Aside from proving the common myth that you have to wait ten minutes for a bus only to have two come at once, the map is a pretty reliable method of planning your journey. While Transport for London’s live bus arrivals portal tends to limit its radar to only include buses within a 25 minute radius of your stop, Somerville’s creation gives a more widespread picture that allows you to see all vehicles driving up and down the entire route.
The map draws information from TfL’s developers’ area, and runs on a map powered by open-source Javascript library Leaflet and populated by OpenStreetMap. Clicking each moving service also brings up detailed information about that particular bus, including its registration plate, service number, destination and scheduled arrival time at the subsequent bus stop, right down to 30-second precision.
This is an invaluable piece of technology for anyone advertising on buses and waiting to spot the vehicles sporting their campaign!