Lisbon Transit Accessibility Planner

🇵🇹 Ler em português

Contributing

This is a civic-tech project and outside contributors are welcome. See BACKLOG.md for open work and CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get started.

Problem

Lisbon's public transit system lacks clear accessibility information. Most GTFS feeds in the Lisbon area (Carris Metropolitana, 12,752 stops) simply don't carry reliable stop-level wheelchair data. Current transit apps don't surface that honestly, leaving users unable to confidently plan their journeys.

Solution

A journey planner that shows nearby transit stops from live Carris Metropolitana data and labels each one honestly: known-accessible (confirmed by an official source or cross-validated OSM tagging) or unknown (no data — the vast majority). It never fabricates a false accessibility guarantee. Enter an address (or use GPS), see nearby accessible stops on a map, and get a Google Maps deep link between the nearest accessible stop at each end of your trip.

Currently confirmed accessible: 41 of 47 metro stations, 9 ferry terminals, 135 bus/tram stops (city-wide, out of 12,752 total Carris stops) — see stops.js for sourcing and issue #3 for the cross-validation method.

Features

• Live stop data: Fetches all 12,752 stops from the Carris Metropolitana API (no API key needed), with a bundled offline fixture as fallback
• Honest accessibility labeling: Each stop is known-accessible or unknown — no fabricated step-free claims; unconfirmed stops are never shown on the map
• Address search with autocomplete: Free-text origin/destination via Photon/Komoot geocoding, or GPS
• Nearest-accessible-stop routing: Finds the nearest confirmed-accessible stop at each end of a trip and hands off to a Google Maps deep link for the actual transit directions
• Mode-of-transport markers: Bus/metro/ferry icons on the map and in results
• Live elevator/escalator outage overlay: dashboard.html shows real-time out-of-service equipment (Metro de Lisboa data via a free GitHub Actions poller); map markers warn when a stop's elevator is down
• 7-language i18n: EN, PT-PT, FR, ES, DE, PL, UK
• Sidewalk-routing prototype: sidewalkRouting.js — a curb-cut-aware pedestrian A* prototype over real OSM data for one pilot cluster, not yet wired into the main UI (see issue #6)
• Simple UI: No login, no signup, mobile-first bottom-sheet layout

Quick Start

npm install
npm test           # Run tests with coverage
open index.html    # Open in browser

File Structure

• app.js — Core logic (distance calc, nearby-stop search, result formatting)
• stops.js — Loads live stop data from the Carris Metropolitana API, with offline fixture fallback and the accessibility cross-validation overlays
• map.js / mapColors.js — Leaflet map rendering and accessibility/mode color-coding
• elevatorStatus.js — Live elevator/escalator outage polling and per-stop outage matching
• sidewalkRouting.js — Curb-cut-aware pedestrian A* prototype (pilot scope, see above)
• index.html — Main browser UI
• dashboard.html — Live elevator/escalator outage dashboard
• *.test.js — Unit tests for each module above
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — Design rationale

Testing

Tests cover distance calculation, nearby-stop search & accessibility-aware sorting, error handling, result formatting, map rendering, elevator outage matching, and the sidewalk-routing pilot graph/pathfinding.

Coverage target: 70%+ (currently ~98%)

CI/CD

GitHub Actions runs tests on every push to ensure quality, plus a scheduled poller for live elevator/escalator status.

Deployment

Deploy to GitHub Pages or any static host. No backend required.

Next Steps

See BACKLOG.md and the open issues for current priorities — chiefly closing the remaining metro-station accessibility gap (needs a data partnership or fresh official roster) and deciding whether/how to scale the sidewalk-routing pilot city-wide.