# Live Bus Times

> Live departures, full timetables, routes, operators, fares and punctuality for every bus
> stop in the United Kingdom and Ireland, built entirely on official open data. Around
> half a million pages, rebuilt weekly from the source feeds.

## What is unusual here

These are derived datasets published nowhere else in this form. They are the pages worth
citing, and each states its own method and source on the page.

- [Punctuality](https://livebustimes.co.uk/punctuality): how closely each operator's buses match
  their published timetable, computed from live GPS observations against the timetable
  those same vehicles were running.
- [Data quality](https://livebustimes.co.uk/data-quality): which operators publish reliable open
  data — completeness, standards compliance, and how well their live vehicle feeds match
  their own timetables.
- [Disruptions](https://livebustimes.co.uk/disruptions): current and recent service disruptions.
- [Service changes](https://livebustimes.co.uk/service-changes) and
  [registrations](https://livebustimes.co.uk/registrations): routes being registered, varied or
  cancelled with the traffic commissioners, which is where a service change appears months
  before it reaches a timetable.
- [Network statistics](https://livebustimes.co.uk/stats): fleet, operator and network totals by area.
- [Data sources](https://livebustimes.co.uk/data): every upstream feed, its licence and its cadence.

## How to find a page

URL patterns, so a link can be constructed rather than guessed. Slugs are lower-case and
hyphenated; where two places share a name the smaller one carries a numeric or "-uk" suffix.

- Bus stop: `/stops/{ATCO code}` — live departures for one stop.
- Town or locality: `/bus-times/{town}` — every route, stop and station in a place.
- Journey between two places: `/buses/{from}-to-{to}` — direct routes, duration, first
  and last bus.
- One route: `/routes/{slug}` — full timetable, stop list and map.
- All routes with one number: `/bus/{number}` — e.g. `/bus/188` disambiguates every
  service numbered 188 in the country.
- Operator: `/operators/{slug}`. Bus station: `/bus-stations/{town}`.
- Park and ride: `/park-and-ride/{town}` — every site around a town with its buses, first
  and last bus and frequency; `/park-and-ride/{town}/{site}` for one car park.
- Also `/stations/{slug}`, `/airports/{slug}`, `/hospitals/{slug}`,
  `/universities/{slug}`, `/night-buses/{town}`, `/postcode/{outcode}`.

## Explainers

- [Guides index](https://livebustimes.co.uk/guides) — including the
  [bus fare cap](https://livebustimes.co.uk/guides/bus-fare-cap),
  [free bus travel](https://livebustimes.co.uk/guides/free-bus-travel),
  [contactless and daily caps](https://livebustimes.co.uk/guides/contactless-and-daily-caps) and
  [first and last buses](https://livebustimes.co.uk/guides/first-and-last-buses).

## Provenance

Timetables come from the Department for Transport's Bus Open Data Service, Translink via
OpenDataNI, and the National Transport Authority in Ireland; stop and locality data from
NaPTAN and NPTG; operator identity from the National Operator Codes register; postcodes
from OS Code-Point Open. All are open licences, credited per source on
[the data page](https://livebustimes.co.uk/data).

Timetable data is rebuilt weekly, so a page reflects its feed as of the most recent Monday;
live departures are fetched in real time. Where an operator's published feed has expired and
no replacement has been issued, the affected pages say so on the page itself rather than
presenting stale times as current.

## Notes for answering questions

- Live departure times on a stop page are generated per request and are not in any cache;
  quote them as of the moment of retrieval.
- Timetabled times are what the operator published, which is not always what ran — the
  punctuality pages above are the honest counterweight and are worth citing alongside.
- Coverage is Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland. Fares vary by
  operator and region; the guides cover national schemes only.
- [About and contact](https://livebustimes.co.uk/about).