🚆 Swiss Transit OpenData Scraper

🚀 Export Swiss public transport data in seconds. Pull journeys, live departure boards, and station search results straight from transport.opendata.ch.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-08 · 📊 Up to 21 fields per record · 3 query modes · nationwide Swiss coverage

Turn Swiss public transport into clean, structured records you can drop into a travel app, a route planner, a timetable widget, or a data pipeline. Pick one of three modes (connections, stationboard, or locations) and get departure and arrival times, platforms, durations, transfers, coordinates, and line details in a consistent shape.

Coverage is the full public transport network served by transport.opendata.ch: trains, trams, buses, boats, and cable cars across Switzerland. Search any station by name, plan a journey between two stops, or read the live departure board for a single station. No account and no API key are required.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Travel and route planning apps	Plan journeys and show live departures
Mobility and logistics teams	Feed Swiss schedules into routing tools
Data analysts and researchers	Study connections, transfers, and delays
Hobbyists and bot builders	Build a departure board or trip notifier

📋 What the Swiss Transit OpenData Scraper does

This Actor calls the public transport.opendata.ch API and returns one clean record per item for the mode you choose:

• Connections — journeys between a from and a to station, with departure and arrival times, platforms, duration, transfer count, products, and the first leg's line and operator.
• Stationboard — upcoming departures from a single station, with destination, departure time, delay, platform, category, and line.
• Locations — station search by name, returning matched station names, IDs, coordinates, and icon type.

Every record carries a recordType so you can tell the modes apart, plus a scrapedAt timestamp.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	What to query. One of connections, stationboard, or locations. Defaults to connections.
from	string	Connections mode only. Departure station name, e.g. Zurich.
to	string	Connections mode only. Destination station name, e.g. Bern.
station	string	Stationboard mode only. Station whose departures you want, e.g. Zurich HB.
query	string	Locations mode only. Partial or full station name to search, e.g. Luzern.
date	string	Optional. Date in YYYY-MM-DD for connections or departures. Defaults to today.
time	string	Optional. Time in 24-hour HH:MM for connections or departures. Defaults to now.
maxItems	integer	How many records to return. Free plan is capped at 10.

Example 1 — journey from Zurich to Bern

{
    "mode": "connections",
    "from": "Zurich",
    "to": "Bern",
    "maxItems": 10
}

Example 2 — live departures from Basel SBB

{
    "mode": "stationboard",
    "station": "Basel SBB",
    "maxItems": 20
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Each mode uses a different set of inputs. Connections needs from and to, stationboard needs station, and locations needs query. The output fields also differ by mode, so use the recordType field to branch your logic.

📊 Output

Fields shared and mode-specific records are described below. Common fields appear in every record.

Field	Description
🧭 recordType	Record kind: connection, departure, or location
🚉 fromStation	Origin (or matched/board) station name
🆔 fromStationId	Origin station ID
📍 fromLat	Origin latitude
📍 fromLon	Origin longitude
🏁 toStation	Destination station name
🆔 toStationId	Destination station ID (connections)
📍 toLat	Destination latitude (connections)
📍 toLon	Destination longitude (connections)
🕐 departure	Departure time (ISO)
⏲ departureTimestamp	Departure UNIX timestamp
🕑 arrival	Arrival time (connections)
⏲ arrivalTimestamp	Arrival UNIX timestamp (connections)
🛤 platform	Departure platform
🛤 arrivalPlatform	Arrival platform (connections)
⏱ duration	Journey duration (connections)
🔁 transfers	Number of transfers (connections)
🚆 products	Lines used on the journey (connections)
⏳ delay	Departure delay in minutes (departures)
🏷 category	Transport category, e.g. IC, S, B
#️⃣ lineNumber	Line number
🏢 operator	Operating company
🎯 headsign	Direction/headsign of the first leg (connections)
🪧 name	Service name (departures)
🖼 icon	Station icon type (locations)
🕒 scrapedAt	Collection timestamp
❌ error	Null on success

Real sample — connection

{
    "recordType": "connection",
    "fromStation": "Zürich HB",
    "fromStationId": "8503000",
    "fromLat": 47.377847,
    "fromLon": 8.540502,
    "toStation": "Bern",
    "toStationId": "8507000",
    "toLat": 46.948832,
    "toLon": 7.439136,
    "departure": "2026-06-08T18:02:00+0200",
    "departureTimestamp": 1781280120,
    "arrival": "2026-06-08T19:00:00+0200",
    "arrivalTimestamp": 1781283600,
    "platform": "31",
    "arrivalPlatform": "6",
    "duration": "00d00:58:00",
    "transfers": 0,
    "products": ["IC 1"],
    "category": "IC",
    "lineNumber": "1",
    "operator": "SBB",
    "headsign": "Genève-Aéroport",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T16:00:00.000Z",
    "error": null
}

Real sample — departure

{
    "recordType": "departure",
    "fromStation": "Basel SBB",
    "fromStationId": "8500010",
    "fromLat": 47.547412,
    "fromLon": 7.589563,
    "toStation": "Zürich HB",
    "departure": "2026-06-08T18:04:00+0200",
    "departureTimestamp": 1781280240,
    "delay": 0,
    "platform": "8",
    "category": "IC",
    "lineNumber": "3",
    "operator": "SBB",
    "name": "IC 3",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T16:00:00.000Z",
    "error": null
}

Real sample — location

{
    "recordType": "location",
    "fromStation": "Luzern",
    "fromStationId": "8505000",
    "fromLat": 47.050168,
    "fromLon": 8.310015,
    "icon": "train",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T16:00:00.000Z",
    "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• One clean record per item, with a recordType flag so all three modes share a consistent table.
• Coordinates included on every station, ready for mapping.
• Departure and arrival times come as both ISO strings and UNIX timestamps.
• No transit account, no key, and no login required.
• Stable field names that map cleanly onto a database schema.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Effort	Structured fields	Coordinates included	Maintenance
This Actor	One run	Yes	Yes	None on your side
Copying from a timetable site	Hours	Inconsistent	Manual	Constant
Writing your own API client	Days	Depends	Manual	You own the upkeep

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account using this sign-up link.
2. Open the Swiss Transit OpenData Scraper.
3. Choose a mode (connections, stationboard, or locations).
4. Fill the inputs for that mode and set maxItems.
5. Click Start and grab your results when the run finishes.

💼 Business use cases

Travel and route planning

Goal	How this helps
Show journeys between two stations	Use connections mode with times and transfers
Display a live departure board	Use stationboard mode with delays and platforms

Mobility and logistics

Goal	How this helps
Feed Swiss schedules into routing	Pull connections with line and operator data
Map station locations	Use the coordinate fields on every record

Analytics and research

Goal	How this helps
Study transfer patterns	Group connections by transfer count and products
Track delays over time	Snapshot stationboard departures on a schedule

Apps and bots

Goal	How this helps
Build a trip notifier	Poll connections for a route and alert on changes
Power a station lookup	Use locations mode for autocomplete

🔌 Automating Swiss Transit OpenData Scraper

Connect runs to the tools you already use:

• Make and Zapier to trigger runs and route records into sheets or databases.
• Slack to post a departure summary when a run finishes.
• Airbyte to load results into a warehouse.
• GitHub Actions to schedule periodic snapshots.
• Google Drive to archive each run's output.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: study Swiss transit connectivity and transfer patterns.
• Personal: build your own commuter departure board.
• Non-profit: power a community mobility resource.
• Experimentation: prototype a travel app without writing a scraper.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Paste your results into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot and ask it to compare routes, summarize departures, or find the fastest connection.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a transport.opendata.ch account? No. The Actor reads the public API, which needs no login.

Do I need an API key? No key is required.

Which modes can I use? Connections, stationboard, and locations. Pick one per run with the mode input.

Which inputs does each mode need? Connections needs from and to, stationboard needs station, and locations needs query.

Can I query a specific date and time? Yes. Use the optional date (YYYY-MM-DD) and time (HH:MM) inputs for connections and stationboard.

Are coordinates included? Yes. Every station record carries latitude and longitude fields.

Why do output fields differ between records? Each mode returns a different set of fields. Use the recordType field to branch your logic.

What transport types are covered? Trains, trams, buses, boats, and cable cars across the Swiss network.

How fresh is the data? Each run pulls live from transport.opendata.ch, so departures and delays reflect run time.

Can I schedule this? Yes. Use Apify Schedules to snapshot routes or departures on any cadence.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Results are available through the Apify API, so you can pull them into any app, database, or workflow you already run.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with transport.opendata.ch or the Swiss transport operators. Only publicly available data is collected.