routesrail

RoutesRail is a modular, open-source routing platform designed to model railway networks and compute optimized itineraries. It provides a graph-based representation of rail systems, including stations, platforms, tracks, and scheduled services, as well as real-time disruptions and maintenance events. The project emphasizes interoperability and extensibility, allowing integration with external data feeds and visualization tools.

The core data model comprises nodes for stations and interchanges, edges for track segments and service legs, and timetable objects that encode arrival and departure times, frequencies, and service calendars. Disruptions, delays, and platform changes are represented as events that can affect routing decisions. A transfers model captures wait times and interchange penalties.

RoutesRail implements timetable-aware routing algorithms that can compute earliest arrival, minimum travel time, or minimum number of transfers under user-specified departure windows. The engine supports multi-criteria optimization and can generate multiple candidate itineraries with scoring. It provides API endpoints and client libraries for web and mobile apps, as well as a simple web UI for manual planning. Data import adapters support standard formats, and there are plug-ins for live timetable feeds and disruption feeds.

Adopters include transit operators, urban planners, and researchers. The project is maintained by a community of contributors and is designed to interoperate with other transport data ecosystems through common schemas and identifiers.