Bus Open Data Service (BODS) and Analyse Bus Open Data (ABOD)
The Bus Open Data Service (BODS) is an ambitious project by the UK Department for Transport, that aims to make public transit data openly available. BODS provides open access to the schedule, real-time vehicle position and fares data for all approximately 26,500 buses in England across 300+ private bus agencies. The policy goal is to make passenger information easy to access, ready to use and of high quality, reducing the friction for data consumers to support MaaS and encourage modal shift.
The visibility provided by the national dataset is unprecedented and is currently being used to drive digital transformation in the industry. Analyse Bus Open Data (ABOD), the nationwide analytics tool, allows users to exploit data to improve outcomes and lower operating costs. Across the industry, ABOD is being used by national, regional, and local governments, agencies, network managers, regulators and policy makers. BODS is expanding to include other modes of local transportation data with tram and coach services now represented. Richer data is also being added, covering disruption information and vehicle occupancy.