hafas-client

A client for the "mobile APIs" of HAFAS public transport management systems.

documentation

Background

A company called HaCon sells a public transport management system called HAFAS to public transport authorities and providers, mostly in Europe. It provides routing and departure information to their customers.

Most customers get their own, separate HAFAS deployments; They all use the same terminology and API calls, but have slightly different versions, configurations and sets of enabled features. Using built-in endpoint-specific customisations, hafas-client abstracts most of these differences away, and supports additional features in some cases. Check the list of supported networks/endpoints for more info.

Note: Currently, hafas-client only supports "mobile API" endpoints, which are designed for and used by the respective official mobile app(s); These endpoints almost always have mgate.exe in the URL. This library does not support "open API" endpoints (often they have rest-proxy or openapi in the URL) yet, but #134 contains work in progress.

Strictly speaking, permission is necessary to use this library with a HAFAS "mobile" endpoint. It merely tries to remove the technical barrier of accessing the data, in order to kick-start an ecosystem or apps and services that will eventually rely on openly available data.

Supported networks/endpoints

hafas-client has built-in support for many public transportation networks.

There are also libraries that use hafas-client and pass their own profile in:

HAFAS endpoint	library
Betriebsstellen & disturbances in the German rail network	db-netz-hafas

Installing

1npm install hafas-client

with react-native

hafas-client as well its dependencies use Node-builtin modules and Node globals. To be able to use it within react-native, follow the instructions at node-libs-react-native.

Usage

Pick the profile for the HAFAS endpoint covering the area you want to get data for.

Because the operators of the HAFAS endpoint should be able to contact you about excessive traffic, please pass a link to your project/program (or an email address) into createClient():

1import {createClient} from 'hafas-client'
2import {profile as dbProfile} from 'hafas-client/p/db/index.js'
3
4// Adapt this to your project! createClient() won't work with this string.
5const userAgent = 'link-to-your-project-or-email'
6
7// create a client with the Deutsche Bahn profile
8const client = createClient(dbProfile, userAgent)

You can now use client to query the HAFAS endpoint configured in the db profile:

1// Berlin Jungfernheide to München Hbf
2const res = await client.journeys('8011167', '8000261', {results: 1})
3console.log(res)

journeys() returns a Promise that will resolve with an object with an array journeys that contains one Friendly Public Transport Format (FPTF) v2 draft journey.

1{

2	journeys: [ {

3		origin: {

4			type: 'station',

5			id: '8089100',

6			name: 'Berlin Jungfernheide (S)',

7			location: { /* … */ },

8			products: { /* … */ }
9		},

10		departure: '2017-12-19T17:05:30+01:00',

11		plannedDeparture: '2017-12-19T17:05:00+01:00',

12		departureDelay: 30,

13		departurePlatform: '5',

14		plannedDeparturePlatform: '5',

15
16		destination: {

17			type: 'station',

18			id: '8000261',

19			name: 'München Hbf',

20			location: { /* … */ },

21			products: { /* … */ }
22		},

23		arrival: '2017-12-19T22:44:00+01:00',

24		plannedArrival: '2017-12-19T22:45:00+01:00',

25		arrivalDelay: -60,

26		arrivalPlatform: '11A',

27		plannedArrivalPlatform: '13',

28
29		legs: [ {

30			id: '1|100067|48|81|17122017',

31			line: {

32				type: 'line',

33				id: '41172',

34				name: 'S 41',

35				public: true,

36				mode: 'train',

37				product: 'suburban',

38				operator: {

39					type: 'operator',

40					id: 's-bahn-berlin-gmbh',

41					name: 'S-Bahn Berlin GmbH'
42				}
43			},

44			direction: 'Ringbahn ->',

45
46			origin: {

47				type: 'station',

48				id: '8089100',

49				name: 'Berlin Jungfernheide (S)',

50				location: {

51					type: 'location',

52					latitude: 52.530291,

53					longitude: 13.299451
54				},

55				products: { /* … */ }
56			},

57			departure: '2017-12-19T17:05:30+01:00',

58			plannedDeparture: '2017-12-19T17:05:00+01:00',

59			departureDelay: 30,

60			departurePlatform: '5',

61			plannedDeparturePlatform: '5',

62
63			destination: {

64				type: 'station',

65				id: '8089118',

66				name: 'Berlin Beusselstraße'
67				// …
68			},

69			arrival: '2017-12-19T17:08:00+01:00',

70			plannedArrival: '2017-12-19T17:08:00+01:00',

71			arrivalDelay: null,

72			arrivalPlatform: '2a-b',

73			plannedArrivalPlatform: '1'
74		},
75		/* more legs… */
76		{

77			walking: true,

78			public: true,

79
80			origin: {

81				type: 'station',

82				id: '730749',

83				name: 'Berlin Hauptbahnhof (S+U), Berlin'
84				// …
85			},

86			plannedDeparture: '2017-12-19T17:25:00+01:00',

87			prognosedDeparture: null,

88			departureDelay: null,

89
90			destination: {

91				type: 'station',

92				id: '8098160',

93				name: 'Berlin Hbf (tief)'
94				// …
95			},

96			arrival: '2017-12-19T17:33:00+01:00',

97			plannedArrival: '2017-12-19T17:33:00+01:00',

98			arrivalDelay: null
99		}, {

100			id: '1|70906|0|81|17122017',

101			line: { /* … */ },

102			direction: 'München Hbf',

103
104			origin: {

105				type: 'station',

106				id: '8098160',

107				name: 'Berlin Hbf (tief)'
108				// …
109			},

110			departure: '2017-12-19T17:35:00+01:00',

111			plannedDeparture: '2017-12-19T17:37:00+01:00',

112			departureDelay: -120,

113			departurePlatform: '1',

114			plannedDeparturePlatform: '1',

115
116			destination: {

117				type: 'station',

118				id: '8000261',

119				name: 'München Hbf',
120				// …
121			},

122			arrival: '2017-12-19T22:44:00+01:00',

123			plannedArrival: '2017-12-19T22:45:00+01:00',

124			arrivalDelay: -60,

125			arrivalPlatform: '11A',

126			plannedArrivalPlatform: '13'
127		} ],

128		price: {

129			amount: null,

130			hint: 'No pricing information available.'
131		}
132		// …
133	} ]
134	// …
135}

Each profile has more detailed example code.

in the browser

While hafas-client itself should work in the browser via a bundler like Webpack, most HAFAS API endpoints don't allow cross-origin resource sharing (CORS), so you won't be able query them (without a proxy server).

TypeScript

There are community-maintained TypeScript typings available as @types/hafas-client.

API

API documentation

Related Projects

• *.transport.rest – Public APIs wrapping some HAFAS endpoints.
• BahnhofsAbfahrten a.k.a. bahn.expert – A very detailed public transport website for Germany. Uses HAFAS underneath, has an API.
• public-transport-enabler – Java equivalent to hafas-client, with support for more types of public transport APIs; Used by Öffi & Transportr.
• TripKit – Swift equivalent to hafas-client, with support for more types of public transport APIs; Used by ÖPNV Navigator.
• kpublictransport – C++ equivalent to hafas-client, with support for more types of public transport APIs; Used by KDE Itinerary.
• pyhafas – Python equivalent to hafas-client, with support for more types of public transport APIs.
• hafas-rs – Rust equivalent to hafas-client.
• fshafas – F# port of hafas-client.
• hafas-client-php – PHP port of hafas-client.
• Transit – Kotlin client for mutliple kinds of public transport APIs, with support for HAFAS APIs.
• nimhafas – Nim HAFAS client (no longer maintained).
• Travel-Status-DE-HAFAS – Perl HAFAS client, rather minimal.
• Friendly Public Transport Format – A format for APIs, libraries and datasets containing and working with public transport data.
• observe-hafas-client – Observe all departures/arrivals/etc. returned by hafas-client.
• cached-hafas-client – Pass in a hafas-client instance, cache data from it.
• hafas-client-rpc – Make JSON-RPC calls to hafas-client via WebSockets & stdio.
• hafas-client-health-check – Check if a hafas-client instance and its endpoint work.
• hafas-rest-api – Expose a HAFAS client via an HTTP REST API.
• List of european long-distance transport operators, available API endpoints, GTFS feeds and client modules.
• Collection of european transport JavaScript modules.
• hafas-find-stations – Given a HAFAS client, find all stations in a bounding box.
• hafas-collect-departures-at – Utility to collect departures, using any HAFAS client.
• find-hafas-data-in-another-hafas – Find data from one HAFAS endpoint in the data of another HAFAS endpoint.
• hafas-gtfs-rt-feed – Generate a GTFS Realtime (GTFS-RT) feed by polling a HAFAS endpoint.
• hafas-monitor-trips – Using a HAFAS client, watch all trips in a bounding box.
• hafas-monitor-departures – Pass in a HAFAS client, fetch all departures at any set of stations.
• hafas-record-delays – Record delays from hafas-monitor-departures into a LevelDB.
• hafas-monitor-journeys – Use hafas-client to monitor journeys from A to B.
• hafas-discover-stations – Pass in a HAFAS client, discover stations by querying departures.
• hafas-estimate-station-weight – Pass in a HAFAS client, estimate the importance of a station.
• db-tickets – A library to retrieve ticket information from Deutsche Bahn.

More related libraries can be found via the npm package index.

Contributing

If you have a question, found a bug or want to propose a feature, please open an Issue.

This project needs help! Check the list of "help wanted" Issues.

If you're contributing code, please read the contribution guidelines.