Hong Kong Transit Scraper

Scrapes Hong Kong's public transit network from the official HKSAR open data programme. Returns the full route and station catalogue plus real-time arrival ETAs across MTR (heavy rail), MTR Light Rail, KMB (Kowloon Motor Bus), and Citybus, all normalized into a single bilingual schema.

---

Hong Kong Transit Scraper Features

• Returns MTR heavy rail across all 10 lines — Island, Tsuen Wan, Kwun Tong, Tseung Kwan O, Tung Chung, Airport Express, East Rail, Tuen Ma, South Island, and Disneyland Resort.
• Returns MTR Light Rail (Tuen Mun / Yuen Long) routes 505 through 761P with bilingual stop names.
• Returns KMB — ~700 unique bus routes, ~6,000 stops, with Octopus stop IDs and lat/long coordinates.
• Returns Citybus — ~400 routes covering Hong Kong Island and cross-harbour services.
• Real-time ETAs for every operator: MTR Next Train, MTR Light Rail Next Train, KMB stop ETA, Citybus stop ETA.
• Bilingual English / Traditional Chinese station names, route termini, and ETA destinations.
• Pure JSON / CSV API scraping — no headless browser, no captcha plumbing, no proxy required.

---

Who Uses Hong Kong Transit Data?

• Travel-tech apps — power MTR / bus journey planners and arrival-board widgets for Hong Kong's 20M+ annual inbound visitors.
• MaaS startups — feed multimodal trip planners with normalized rail + bus data across all four operators.
• Tourism analytics — measure transit accessibility for hotels, attractions, and conference venues across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories.
• Logistics & delivery — map last-mile coverage against bus stops and MTR exits.
• Internal dashboards — populate dropdowns and validate user-typed origin / destination stations against the real HKSAR transit catalogue.

---

How Hong Kong Transit Scraper Works

1. Validates the input mode and operator. Rejects unsupported combinations (e.g. route_stops on MTR — heavy rail uses station_list instead).
2. Pulls the right HKSAR open-data endpoint for the chosen (operator, mode):
   • MTR catalogue → opendata.mtr.com.hk/data/mtr_lines_and_stations.csv
   • MTR Light Rail catalogue → opendata.mtr.com.hk/data/light_rail_routes_and_stops.csv
   • MTR Next Train → rt.data.gov.hk/v1/transport/mtr/getSchedule.php
   • MTR Light Rail Next Train → rt.data.gov.hk/v1/transport/mtr/lrnt/getSchedule
   • KMB → data.etabus.gov.hk/v1/transport/kmb/...
   • Citybus → rt.data.gov.hk/v2/transport/citybus/...
3. Normalizes each operator's response into a single bilingual schema with consistent field names.
4. Resolves bus stop IDs to lat/long + bilingual names with bounded fan-out concurrency.
5. Emits one flat record per route, station, route-stop, or live ETA, capped by maxItems.

All endpoints are unauthenticated and operated by the Hong Kong government or a participating operator. No API key, no proxy, no auth headers required.

---

Input

{
  "mode": "route_list",
  "operator": "kmb",
  "maxItems": 15
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	route_list	One of route_list, station_list, route_stops, stop_eta. See modes below.
operator	string	mtr	One of mtr, mtr_lr, kmb, citybus.
route	string	1A	Bus route number (KMB / Citybus) or MTR line code (TKL, ISL, etc.). Required for route_stops, optional for stop_eta to filter.
direction	string	outbound	Direction. outbound / inbound for buses, UP / DOWN for MTR. Used by route_stops.
stop_id	string	—	Operator-specific stop identifier. Required for stop_eta. KMB uses 16-character hex (A3ADFCDF8487ADB9); Citybus uses 6-digit numeric (001027); MTR uses 3-letter station codes (CEN, TST); Light Rail uses 3-letter stop codes.
mtr_line	string	—	Required for stop_eta on MTR. The MTR Next Train API needs both station and line code.
maxItems	integer	15	Maximum records to emit. Default is 15 to keep test runs fast. Set higher for full inventory dumps.
proxyConfiguration	object	no proxy	HK Open Data APIs are public — proxy not required. Honoured if you opt in.

Modes

Mode	What it returns
route_list	Every route operated by the chosen operator.
station_list	Full station / stop inventory with bilingual names and (for buses) lat/long coordinates.
route_stops	Ordered stop sequence for a single bus route. Bus-only — for MTR use station_list.
stop_eta	Real-time arrival ETAs at a single stop.

Run examples

KMB route catalogue:

{
  "mode": "route_list",
  "operator": "kmb",
  "maxItems": 1000
}

MTR Tseung Kwan O Line — live arrivals at Tiu Keng Leng:

{
  "mode": "stop_eta",
  "operator": "mtr",
  "stop_id": "TIK",
  "mtr_line": "TKL"
}

KMB bus 1A — full outbound stop list with bilingual names + lat/long:

{
  "mode": "route_stops",
  "operator": "kmb",
  "route": "1A",
  "direction": "outbound",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Citybus stop ETAs at Central (Macao Ferry):

{
  "mode": "stop_eta",
  "operator": "citybus",
  "stop_id": "001027"
}

---

Hong Kong Transit Scraper Output Fields

Every record carries a record_type. The unused fields for that record type are empty strings or null.

record_type	Mode	Operator
route	route_list	all
station	station_list	all
route_stop	route_stops	KMB, Citybus
eta	stop_eta	all

Route record example (KMB)

{
  "record_type": "route",
  "operator": "KMB",
  "service_type": "bus",
  "route_number": "1A",
  "route_origin_en": "STAR FERRY",
  "route_origin_zh": "尖沙咀碼頭",
  "route_dest_en": "SAU MAU PING (CENTRAL)",
  "route_dest_zh": "中秀茂坪",
  "direction": "inbound",
  "service_class": "1",
  "source_url": "https://data.etabus.gov.hk/v1/transport/kmb/route/",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-02T16:56:14.723Z"
}

Station record example (MTR)

{
  "record_type": "station",
  "operator": "MTR",
  "service_type": "metro",
  "line_code": "TKL",
  "line_name": "Tseung Kwan O Line",
  "direction": "DT",
  "station_code": "NOP",
  "station_name_en": "North Point",
  "station_name_zh": "北角",
  "sequence": 1,
  "source_url": "https://opendata.mtr.com.hk/data/mtr_lines_and_stations.csv",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-02T16:56:14.723Z"
}

ETA record example (MTR live)

{
  "record_type": "eta",
  "operator": "MTR",
  "service_type": "metro",
  "line_code": "TKL",
  "line_name": "Tseung Kwan O Line",
  "station_code": "TIK",
  "direction": "UP",
  "eta_seq": 1,
  "eta_time": "2026-05-03 00:36:28",
  "eta_minutes": 3,
  "eta_destination_en": "POA",
  "platform": "3",
  "source_url": "https://rt.data.gov.hk/v1/transport/mtr/getSchedule.php?line=TKL&sta=TIK",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-02T16:56:14.723Z"
}

Field reference

Field	Type	Description
record_type	string	route, station, route_stop, or eta.
operator	string	MTR, MTR_LR, KMB, or CTB.
service_type	string	metro / light_rail / bus / airport_express.
route_number	string	Bus route number or MTR line code.
route_origin_en / route_origin_zh	string	Origin terminus (English / Traditional Chinese).
route_dest_en / route_dest_zh	string	Destination terminus.
direction	string	outbound / inbound for buses; UP / DOWN for MTR.
service_class	string	KMB service variant. 1 is the primary route; higher numbers are alternates.
line_code / line_name	string	MTR line identifier and full name.
station_code	string	Operator-specific stop identifier.
station_name_en / station_name_zh	string	Stop / station name.
sequence	number	Stop sequence on a route (1-based).
latitude / longitude	number	WGS84 coordinates. Buses only — MTR catalogue does not publish coordinates.
eta_seq	number	ETA index (1, 2, 3 for the next three arrivals).
eta_time	string	ETA timestamp (ISO 8601 / HKT).
eta_minutes	number	Minutes to next arrival.
eta_destination_en / eta_destination_zh	string	Arriving service's destination.
platform	string	MTR platform number.
remarks_en / remarks_zh	string	Operator-published remark (e.g. "Bus is full", "Service ended").
data_timestamp	string	Operator-published data timestamp.
source_url	string	Source endpoint the record was derived from.
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp when the record was scraped.

---

FAQ

How do I scrape Hong Kong transit data?

Pick a mode (route_list, station_list, route_stops, stop_eta) and an operator (mtr, mtr_lr, kmb, citybus), then run. The scraper hits the right HKSAR open-data endpoint, normalizes the response, and emits flat records.

Does Hong Kong Transit Scraper need an API key?

No. The HKSAR open-data programme publishes these endpoints for free public use. No registration, no token, no rate-limit headers.

Does the scraper return fares?

Not in v1. Neither KMB nor Citybus expose fares via the open APIs, and MTR fares are a separate closed download. Fare modes are out of scope for this version.

What about Star Ferry, First Ferry, TurboJET, or HK Tramways?

Out of scope. Star Ferry, First Ferry, and TurboJET publish PDF schedules (no structured API). HK Tramways has no public data feed at all. Adding them would require HTML scraping that is materially more work than the API-only surface.

How do I find a stop ID for stop_eta?

Run station_list mode for the operator first. The station_code field on each record is the ID you pass to stop_eta. For MTR, also note the line_code — stop_eta on MTR needs both.

How fresh is the data?

ETAs are live (~30 second refresh). Route and stop catalogues are refreshed daily by KMB and Citybus, quarterly by MTR.

How many records does a full run produce?

Per operator at full inventory: KMB ~6,000 stops or ~1,600 route-direction-variants; Citybus ~3,000 stops or ~400 routes; MTR 99 stations × 2 directions = ~270 station rows; Light Rail ~70 stops. Set maxItems accordingly — default 15 keeps test runs fast.

---

Need More Features?

Need ferry coverage, fare data, journey-planning A→B routing, or a GTFS-RT export? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use Hong Kong Transit Scraper?

• Free APIs, low cost — pay-per-event pricing, ~$0.0008 per record at the default coefficient. A full Hong Kong network catalogue dump costs less than a single Octopus tap.
• Bilingual & normalized — every record carries both English and Traditional Chinese names. Field names are consistent across MTR, KMB, Citybus, and Light Rail.
• Stable — no headless browser, no captcha solver, no scraping-the-DOM heuristics. Just public HKSAR open-data endpoints over HTTPS.