Carris Real-Time Bus & Tram Tracking

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-07

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means

Carris, Lisbon's municipal bus and tram operator, has published a static GTFS schedule feed since 2020 and tracks its fleet by GPS through the XTraN Passenger platform, a ~€3.4M upgrade finished in 2022. Real-time positions reached Google Maps in December 2023 and the CARRISway app in June 2025 — but Carris restricted outside developers' API access in 2022.

Live 📅 since 2020

Outcome🔄 Ongoing

Evidence• No measured figure

Run byCarris — Companhia Carris de Ferro de Lisboa

Scale🏙️ City-wide

Cost≈€3.4M (Carris-Tecmic XTraN Passenger platform contract, 2019-2020)

FundingCâmara Municipal de Lisboa (100% owner); XTraN platform delivered under a ~€3.4M contract with Tecmic (2019-2020)

🎓 Lesson

Publishing a schedule feed is not the same as opening real-time data: Carris calls its GPS feed 'public, not free' and gated it after an independent tracking app used it, while neighbouring Metro de Lisboa's open API lets outside developers build their own tools.

🚲 Mobility Sensors & IoT Public transport Open data

Sources

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time APIOperator quote ('public, not free'); explicit contrast with Metro de Lisboa's open API.

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migration~€3.4M Tecmic contract (2019-2020), live cutover 11 October 2022, GPS fleet-tracking capabilities.

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus appD3 digital-rights association cites Portugal's 2021 Open Data Law.

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google MapsDecember 2023.

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle mapJune 2025 update, real-time to the second.

↗ Transitland — CARRIS GTFS feed recordLive feed at gateway.carris.pt, actively fetched as of August 2026.

↗ ECO — Carris ownership transfer to the Lisbon City CouncilConfirms 100% municipal ownership since February 2017.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇺🇸 NextMuni: Real-Time Muni Predictions & the Fight Over Who Owned Them · San Francisco Both operators asserted control over transit data they generate — SF's licensee in 2009, Lisbon's Carris gating its own feed since 2022. 🇵🇹 GIRA Bike-Share · Lisbon Another verified project from Lisbon. 🇵🇹 Lisbon's Environmental Parameters Sensor Network · Lisbon Another verified project from Lisbon.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else 📡 Sensors & IoT guide 🏙️ Lisbon city profile 🚲 Mobility projects 📖 GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification)📖 Open data 📖 Urban data platform (UDP)

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Carris Real-Time Bus & Tram Tracking” — Lisbon, Portugal. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/lisbon-carris-realtime-tracking/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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