A native Android app for getting around Auckland: live buses, trains and ferries, journey planning on AT's full timetable, and a few quirks. Built for the Galaxy S26 with Kotlin, Jetpack Compose and Material 3. It started as the phone version of akl-departure-board, the ESP32 desk display, and brings over the features of the desktop app.
Home · Directions · A journey · Every bus · Trains · More
Open Releases → latest on the phone, download AKL-Live.apk and open it.
Android asks once to allow installs from your browser. Every push to main
builds a new signed APK there. Installing it updates the app in place.
The app needs an Auckland Transport API key, and none is built in. Sign up at dev-portal.at.govt.nz (it's free), subscribe to the GTFS and realtime APIs, and paste your key in the app's Settings. Home shows a card pointing there until a key is set.
The bottom bar has Home, Directions, Live (every bus), Trains and More (search, alerts, routes, the fleet, the fleet dex, settings).
A greeting for the time of day (Mōrena, Kia ora, Ahiahi mārie in Kiwi mode), a line on how things look ("The 27H's running 6 min late, eh", "Double-decker incoming"), the time and the weather, then:
- Leave in… for the next bus each way, from how long your walk to the stop is. Miss it and it tells you when to leave for the one after, or to run.
- A search bar for everything, and one-tap chips: take me home, to work, every bus, alerts.
- Your stops' live scenes (below), each with Track and All departures.
- The next 12 hours of weather, with the chance of rain.
- Favourite stops with their next departures, live.
- Stops near me from your location.
- The live route map and your fleet dex progress.
Home's scenes follow your stops: by default the 27H at Aldersgate Road, Hillsborough, both directions (stop 8669 to Britomart, 8664 to Waikowhai).
- A live scene per direction. The bus drives toward the stop as its arrival counts down, and its wheels turn while it's moving. The sky follows the real time of day: sunrise, the sun's arc, sunset, then stars and a crescent moon, with lit windows and the Sky Tower's beacon. The weather is Auckland's real weather (Open-Meteo): cloud cover greys the sky, and it drizzles, rains, fogs over or flashes with thunder when Auckland does. The city lane has the skyline with Rangitoto behind; the Waikowhai lane has houses, pōhutukawa in flower and Maungakiekie's obelisk.
- The next bus in detail. It shows the expected arrival against the timetable, on time or minutes late, and a track of the stops between the bus and you with the last one it passed. From its GPS it also shows how far away it is in km, its speed and how full it is.
- What bus is coming. The fleet number in AT's feed (
TR3884,NB5760) gives the operator and, where the fleet list knows it, the model: a CRRC eT12 MAX, an eD12 MAX double-decker, an Enviro200... Electric buses get a ⚡, and the scene draws the right bus (double-deckers, no exhaust on electrics). - The next five buses with live and scheduled times and models.
- A live satellite map of the whole 27H. Both directions over real aerial photos (or a street map), every bus on its way to you gliding between GPS fixes and pointing where it's heading. Tap it for full screen, then tap a bus to see what it is. Pull down anywhere to refresh.
- Tap the scene and the bus honks.
Fleet · A model's page · Fleet dex
- Fleet: every bus model in Auckland with a real photo (from its AT Metro Wiki page, credited on each), how many are out right now, and who runs them. The photos download once in the background and stay on the phone, so they show instantly (and offline) after that. The bus coming to your stop shows its photo too.
- A model's page: specs, a short history, the fleet numbers each operator uses, and a live map of every one of them on the road.
- Fleet dex: every model that pulls up at your Home stops gets spotted and counted, from "Fresh at the kerb" to "Ultimate spotter". The rest stay mysteries until you see one.
Journey planning across buses, trains and ferries, on the phone. AT's full GTFS timetable (about 29 MB) downloads once, is checked for updates every six hours, and each service day is compiled into a compact network cached on the phone. A RAPTOR planner, ported from the desktop app, finds the fastest journeys with 1, 2, 3 or more rides, walking between nearby stops for changes.
- From and to: your location, home, work, favourite stops, recent places, any stop or station, any address or place (Photon / OpenStreetMap), or a pin dropped on the map.
- Leave now, leave at or arrive by, today or any day in the next week.
- Options: how far you'll walk, your pace, buses/trains/ferries, how many changes.
- Each option shows its times, the rides in order, walking, changes and "leave in", with live delays on the first ride and tags for the fastest, fewest changes and least walking. If walking there takes under 25 minutes, that shows too.
- The journey view: the whole trip over a map, with the ride shapes and every bus or train live on them, walking paths with turn-by-turn directions (OSRM), every stop on each ride, platforms, and "3 stops away" / "you're on it: 5 stops to go". Share it, add it to your calendar, or track a ride.
- Any stop or station: live departures from every platform, filtered by route, with each bus's model, how late it is and how many stops away. Tap one to see the bus and track it. There's a map of the stop with the buses heading for it (tap one to see its route), alerts for the stop and its routes, favourites with nicknames, directions to or from it, and add to home screen as its own icon.
- Any route: its paths on a map, its stops each way, trips today, first and last departures, who runs it, and every bus on it right now.
- Search finds stops (by name or the number on the sign), routes, places, bus models and fleet numbers. With nothing typed, it shows saved places, favourites and recent searches.
- Alerts: AT's disruptions with yours first (your route, stops and favourites), then everything happening now or coming up, searchable by route.
- Track a bus: a notification that counts down to it on its own, shows how many stops away it is, its model and how full it is, updated every 20 s. It buzzes when it's time to leave (your walk plus a lead time you choose), and stops itself once the bus has been.
- Home screen widgets:
- Next bus: your next bus each way, refreshed in the background.
- Your trip: once you start a trip, where you're up to (walk to the stop, the bus is 2 stops away, 4 stops to go), the rides ahead, when you'll get there, and End.
- Search: a search bar that opens straight into search.
- Quick settings tile: "27H · 6 min" in the notification shade.
- App shortcuts: long-press the icon for Directions, Live, Trains, Search and your favourite stops.
- Links:
akllive://stop/8669,akllive://route/27H,akllive://planand the rest open straight to the screen.
- Material 3 throughout, with six colour themes named after Auckland things (Waitematā, Pōhutukawa, Kawakawa, Kōwhai, Rangitoto, Tūī), Material You colours from your wallpaper, light, dark and pure black.
- Shake to refresh, haptics on taps, predictive back, a splash screen, and a themed icon.
- Kiwi mode: "Sweet as", "Chur!", "Gutted.", "Time to hit the road!".
- Fleet dex: every bus model that pulls up at your stops is spotted and counted, from Rookie spotter to Ultimate spotter. Unseen ones stay mysteries.
- A few things to find in search, and in Settings' version number.
Every bus in Auckland on one map, about a thousand at a time, coloured by operator and gliding between GPS fixes. Zoom in and each one shows its heading and route number.
- Search by route (
27finds the 27H, 27W and 27T), fleet number (NB5075) or model (eT12), and the map frames what it found. - Filters for electric buses, double-deckers or one operator, with live counts.
- Tap a bus for its route and destination, how late it's running, its speed, how full it is and what model it is. Tap the model for its page.
Every bus model on the network (the CRRC eT12 MAX, Geely C13E, Enviro500 and the rest), sorted by how many are out right now.
- Each model has its own page: a drawing of it (double-deckers, tri-axles, electrics), specs such as length, seats, motor and top speed, a short history, the fleet numbers each operator uses, and a live map of every one of them on the road, with a list you can tap to find each bus.
- Buses whose fleet numbers aren't in the list yet are grouped under Not identified yet, with their own map.
Auckland's rail network on a real map, drawn the way the desktop app draws it, with every train live on it.
- The real tracks. Each line follows the rails its trains run on today, cut from the shapes in AT's timetable. Where lines share rails they run side by side in AT's colours (E-W, S-C, O-W), easing on and off the shared track so they meet and part without crossing. Stations whose platforms are on different tracks get a bar joining them, as on AT's map. Straight lines stand in until the timetable has loaded.
- Every train, live, snapped onto its own line and pointing the way it's going, with an orange or red dot when it's running 2 or 5+ minutes late.
- Diagram, Satellite or Map. Diagram is a quiet map (land, water, parks and suburb names) that lets the lines stand out. Station names appear as you zoom in, the most important first.
- Tap a train for its destination, speed, delay, how full it is, and its next stops with expected times. Tap a station for live departures from every platform.
- Line filters (E-W, S-C, O-W) with live counts, and a network overview showing how many trains on each line are running late. Landscape puts the map beside the panel.
Kotlin, Jetpack Compose and Material 3, with navigation-compose, Glance for
the widget and WorkManager behind it. The scenes, the train diagram and the
vehicle markers are drawn with Compose Canvas. The journey planner
(gtfs/) is plain Kotlin: a streaming GTFS reader, a compiler that turns a
service day into flat arrays (routes, stops, trips grouped into patterns,
footpaths between stops within 450 m, shapes) saved to disk, and RAPTOR over
them. The real maps are
MapLibre (open source), with:
- satellite: Esri World Imagery, or with a free LINZ Basemaps key, Toitū Te Whenua LINZ's aerial photos (7.5 cm in Auckland, CC BY 4.0). Paste a key in Settings.
- streets: OpenFreeMap (OpenStreetMap data).
Transit data comes straight from the AT developer API:
| What | Endpoint |
|---|---|
| Stop timetable | gtfs/v3/stops/{id}/stoptrips |
| Live delays, stops away | realtime/legacy/tripupdates?tripid= |
| Bus and train GPS | realtime/legacy/vehiclelocations?tripid= / ?vehicleid= (all trains are 59xxx) |
| Train destination and stops | gtfs/v3/trips/{id} and .../stoptimes |
| Station departures | stoptrips for each platform (platforms from parent_station) |
| Every bus (Live, Fleet) | realtime/legacy/vehiclelocations, the whole feed (~80 KB gzipped) |
| Bus operator and model | the vehicle label (TR3884) looked up in app/src/main/assets/fleet.tsv and models.json |
| Service alerts | realtime/legacy/servicealerts |
| The timetable (Directions, stops, routes) | https://gtfs.at.govt.nz/gtfs.zip |
Other open services: Photon for places, FOSSGIS OSRM for walking directions and Open-Meteo for weather. None needs a key.
Train GPS fixes are snapped onto the nearest station-to-station stretch of the
train's own line on the schematic. tools/gen_data.py generates the map
geometry, the station/platform table and the 27H's stop lists into
app/src/main/java/nz/aryan/akllive/data/:
AT_API_KEY=... python tools/gen_data.py
The app polls only while it's on screen: buses every 30 s, trains every 15 s, and the whole network every 20 s, only while Live or Fleet is open.
AT's feed reports train speeds in m/s, as GTFS-realtime specifies, but bus speeds in km/h. Both were checked against how far vehicles actually moved between fixes.
AT's feed doesn't say what model a bus is, only its fleet number with the
operator's code in front (NB NZ Bus, GB Go Bus, RT Ritchies, HE Howick &
Eastern, TR Tranzurban, BA Bayes, WB Waiheke). fleet.tsv maps fleet number
ranges to models, and models.json describes each model. Both come from the
AT Metro Wiki's model and operator pages (CC BY-SA).
They cover about three quarters of the buses on the road. Every CI build runs
tools/fleet_survey.py, which lists each
range on the road right now, the routes it's running and whether the table
knows it, so gaps are easy to fill in:
AT_API_KEY=... python tools/fleet_survey.py
GitHub Actions builds app-release.apk on every push to any branch
(.github/workflows/build.yml); only main publishes it to the release.
It uses these repository secrets:
AT_API_KEY: used only by the fleet survey step and the Screenshots workflow's emulator. The published APK never contains a key.LINZ_API_KEY(optional): the same, for the sharper aerials in screenshotsKEYSTORE_B64,KEYSTORE_PASSWORD: the signing key. It's kept locally insigning/, which is gitignored. Back it up: updates must be signed with the same key.
The Screenshots workflow (run it by hand) drives every screen in an emulator
with live data; pick build to shoot a branch instead of the latest release.
Local builds need JDK 17, the Android SDK and Gradle 8.11:
gradle :app:assembleRelease. Without the signing secrets, you get a
debug-signed APK.
Made by AryanPCS, with the assistance of Claude. Not affiliated with Auckland Transport.