Tag Archives for open source

Open data for stations and accessibility

While the iRail API has been getting quite some updates, we remained silent about our open data on stations. Mostly because there wasn’t really anything to talk about. Today is different. What we had before Before today, we provided a … Continue reading

22. November 2017 by Bert
Categories: iRail, NMBS, open data | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

More API data in less network data

Days are getting shorter, and iRail API responses are getting longer. We’ve added some more data to various API endpoints, so you can build even better applications. We’ve also improved support for HTTP caching, and are closing in on a … Continue reading

10. November 2017 by Bert
Categories: iRail, NMBS, open data | Tags: , , , | 2 comments

Meeting the NMBS

After listening to Michaël Vanloubbeeck on their Internet strategy, he asked us straight away what we thought about their mobile web application. There are three points we thought worth mentioning:

1. The number of clicks before you can see the right data is about 4 times too much. I only want to click once.
2. There is no autocompletion on the station names.
3. There is no button to switch destination and departure station

On top of that we noted that for big phones like most android, maemo/meego, bada and iphone phones, the site was too small. It was a great mobile website optimized for small screens and fast connections. We concluded that they, in comparison to iRail, have a totally different focus. Both approaches are needed however and we need to cooperate on this. The NMBS however responded that their mobile website is aimed to target all phones and anyone, which we can’t agree on. Discussion still open.

The second discussion is one that we started. We are still having difficulties with Stibbe. Stibbe is a respected law firm in Belgium who apparently has been hired by the NMBS to try to close us down. They’re quite aggressive in their approach by sending scary letters that our lawyer (if you read this, thanks for your free support, we appreciate it a lot!) seems to handle a lot better than we do. They didn’t have a clue about that however. They ensured us however that they will *try* to stop these actions and let us work as we were doing. So the logical question for us is: “Can we hereby officially use your data?”; Yet this seemed to be more complicated as we thought. The real discussion had been started. Continue reading

29. September 2010 by Pieter Colpaert
Categories: NMBS | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 comments

iRail meet-up: Report

Ironically we started a little later as planned due to unforeseen traffic-jams for Yeri and Christophe. Nevertheless we did a great job and I want to start off by thanking all the participants and of course the hackerspace of Ghent.

Read the full story on what we decided and check out some pictures at http://bonsansnom.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/irail-meet-up-report/ Continue reading

19. September 2010 by Pieter Colpaert
Categories: Meetings | Tags: , , , | 3 comments

iRail meet-up – Friday 17 sept

On Friday the 17th of September we are meeting up with all people interested in open data to specify the iRail API. Whether you’re a graphical artist, a low-level coder, a mobile app developer, openness enthusiast, journalist, etc… you’re more than welcome.

Read more for location and program. Continue reading

13. September 2010 by Pieter Colpaert
Categories: Meetings | Tags: , , | 2 comments