The ATCO code is an identifier for bus stops in the NaPTAN database. Bus Stop Checker is a free online tool that can be used to view a bus stop on a map and can be searched by ATCO code.

Automatic Vehicle Location systems provide the GPS coordinates where a vehicle actually is.

The Bus Open Data Service, or BODS for short, is a Department for Transport led initiative to enable new applications, products and services for passengers. It emerged from the Bus Services Act 2017, which included improvements designed to make commercial bus services more accessible to passengers. The service launched in February 2020 with a small [...]

BSOG stands for the Bus Service Operators Grant. It is a grant paid to operators of eligible bus services and community transport organisations to help them recover some of their fuel costs. The amount each bus operator receives is based on their annual fuel consumption. BSOG also aims to benefit passengers by: helping operators keep fares [...]

Electronic Ticketing Machine

Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is often displayed on the screens on bus stops or train stations. It is a prediction of when a vehicle, in these examples a bus or train, based on where it is right now. It can also be used by a journey planner as an indication of when a traveller [...]

General Bikeshare Feed Specification, known as GBFS, is the open data standard for bikeshare. GBFS makes real-time data feeds in a uniform format publicly available online, with an emphasis on findability. GBFS is intended to make information publicly available online. Under the North American Bikeshare Association’s leadership, GBFS has been developed by public, private sector and non-profit [...]

The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is a data specification that allows public transport operators to publish their transit data in a format that can be consumed by a wide variety of software applications. Today, the GTFS data format covers both static and real-time data and is used by thousands of public transport providers. You [...]

The HOPS is the central system which holds information about everyone’s smart cards. the HOPS automates many of the complex daily tasks of a smart transport ticketing scheme including transaction processing and asset management.

Serial number encoded on a smart card but not known to a customer

ITSO are the guardian of the ITSO Specification developed in the UK under Crown Copyright, which aims to make travelling on public transport throughout the UK seamless and easier by enabling smart ticketing technology.  The ITSO community is a membership of public sector authorities, transport operators and equipment and solution suppliers to the smart ticketing [...]

Serial number printed on the front of a smart card

The National Operator Code dataset (NOC) contains unique national operator codes that link to the local operator codes in the Traveline National Data Set (TNDS) and NextBuses API. A key part of the TNDS, its main purpose is to provide a single controlled list of (public service vehicle) operators and their public names. The NOC [...]

The UK’s national dataset of public transport access points (bus stops, rail stations, airports, ferry piers, tram/metro/underground stops) is known as the NaPTAN database. It records approximately 400,000 bus stops across England, Scotland and Wales, as well as other transport terminals including: rail stations airports NaPTAN consists of: a standard for identifying and naming access [...]

The National Public Transport Gazetteer (NPTG) is closely associated with the NaPTAN dataset and contains details of every city, town, village and suburb in Great Britain. This dataset is based on usage of names, rather than legal definitions and so includes local informal names for places as well as their official names. As a topographic [...]

The NextBuses API is an open API from Traveline. The API allows users to access live departure information by stop across Great Britain. Real-time information is provided where it is available and scheduled departures where not. The API is based on the SIRI standard, using the SIRI-SM function through a request/response communication mechanism. SIRI is [...]

Open data is data that has been made available to the public, for personal, educational or commercial use. It is usually released under an open data license, such as the Open Government License Version 3.0. Many public transport operators release their data as open data. Certain datasets must be released to the public under UK [...]

A payment service provider (PSP) offers shops online services for accepting electronic payments by a variety of payment methods including credit card, bank-based payments such as direct debit, bank transfer, and real-time bank transfer based on online banking.

Real Time Passenger Information provides you with information about public transport services in ‘real time’. This allows you to see which services are due to your stop and what time they are expected to arrive.

In order to make real-time transport information compatible between different systems, several European countries joined efforts to create a standard protocol known as Service Interface for Real Time Information (SIRI). This protocol describes (at length!) how different systems can share real-time passenger information, allowing different suppliers, operators and local authorities to work together without costly [...]

Tap On, Tap Off is one of several names given to the type of contactless payment method that allows you to simply “tap” your contactless payment card (or device) onto a reader at the start of your journey and “tap” again on a reader when you complete your journey. What you are charged for the [...]

TransXChange is the UK national standard for exchanging bus schedules and related data. It is used for: the electronic registration of bus routes the Traffic Area Network the exchange of bus routes with other computer systems such as journey planners and vehicle real-time tracking systems https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/transxchange

The Traveline National Dataset (TNDS) contains public transport timetables for bus, light rail, tram and ferry services in Great Britain. It does not include national rail or coach services. It is managed by Traveline Information Ltd (TIL) who work with local authorities to bring all public transport timetables into a single dataset. The dataset provides [...]