METRO 2025-06, zeroth version of Gossamer

Seems to me that I wouldn't fit into the character limit of Mastodon, so I decided to write here.

We're on track

Gossamer is out of depot and on track. I've tagged the baseline version 'Ealing Broadway' and you may have already noticed the pattern. Gossamer releases will follow the District line of London Tube.

Yes, but what is in the new release?

Reactivity. If you search for a journey, and then quickly search for another one, the first one will not show up after the second one. You'll always get the newest journey you search for. And if you type in search boxes, it won't search immediately, but it'll wait a short time for you to stop.

Staying with journeys, if any leg has an alert associated, it is now shown in the itinerary. Also, if two legs are connected at the same stop, and all you have to do is wait for another vehicle, the wait time is clearly indicated. It's now also possible to choose current location as the origin or destination not only at first.

Moving on to stops, there are full-day stop-times, departed or arrived is shown instead of less-than-one. There are also next stops with travel durations, and a map that shows the selected stop, the vehicle and the shape of the trip.

Accessibility has been improved, but there's still room for more. There were improvements to the source code, error handling; dependencies and the font have been updated. If any found place does not have associated timezone, there's now a configurable service that will provide the timezone. And the community keeps doing an amazing job translating.

'But wait!' I hear you call. 'Where are favourites?'

It turns out, favourites are more difficult than it seems. I might start falsehoods programmers believe about public transport stops, or add them to Public Transport Falsehoods. I mean, stop's internal ID never changes, its position or its name, they never change, right? Right? But then if you can identify a stop in a way that won't change, try identifying the platform when its ID and the services calling there might change.

What's also missing is the nearby stops. I decided that instead of adding half-baked feature now, I'll add them with the first stop-time later. I'm taking part in the 2026 Open Transport Hack Days, so there's time to focus on both these missing things.

See you all at the next stop!