1001 Smart Cities
🇵🇹 Lisbon

Carris Real-Time Bus & Tram Tracking

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 9 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

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.

9 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 27 Aug 2026 Publication date recorded for 7 sources. What changed →

Lisbon's bus operator tracks every vehicle by GPS and feeds Google Maps in real time — but in 2022 it locked outside developers out of that data, calling it 'public, not free.'

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence📰 Media
what does this mean?The strongest source is press reporting; no primary evaluation was located. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
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)

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 6 more in Lisbon · 📡 Sensors & IoT guide · 🚲 Mobility projects

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, contracted from Tecmic for about €3.4M between 2019 and 2020 and migrated through 2022. Real-time positions reached Google Maps in December 2023 and the CARRISway app in June 2025 — but Carris closed public access to the API in 2022, saying its data are 'public, which does not mean they are free'.

Live 📅 since 2020

📊 Impact

The one measurable consequence is what the closure removed. GeoBus, a free iPhone app a volunteer had built from early 2020 to show where Carris buses were, stopped working in December 2022 when Carris changed the key; the developer had no notice either time. The digital-rights association D3 called Carris 'an example not to follow' and pointed at Portugal's 2021 public-sector open-data law, which classes mobility data as high-value data that should be machine-readable, reachable by API and supplied free of charge. No ridership or reliability effect of the tracking itself has been published.

🎓 Lesson

Publishing a schedule feed is not the same as opening real-time data. Carris says its GPS feed is 'public, which does not mean they are free' and gated it after an independent tracking app used it, while Metro de Lisboa's open API lets outside developers build their own tools. The operator's stated reason was load and credential control; the association that reviewed it answered that maintaining an API costs little and that third-party access does not technically harm the system — which turns the question from capacity into policy.

🚲 MobilitySensors & IoTPublic transportOpen data

Sources

↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time APIPublished 6 October 2022Operator quote ('public, not free'); explicit contrast with Metro de Lisboa's open API.
↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migrationPublished 14 October 2022~€3.4M Tecmic contract (2019-2020), live cutover 11 October 2022, GPS fleet-tracking capabilities.
↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus appPublished 5 January 2023D3 digital-rights association cites Portugal's 2021 Open Data Law.
↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google MapsPublished 12 December 2023December 2023.
↗ Lisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle mapPublished 4 June 2025June 2025 update, real-time to the second.
Show 2 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ Transitland — CARRIS GTFS feed recordA continuously updated feed registry entry rather than a dated article. No publication date is recorded: the page did not answer when this entry was checked.
↗ ECO — Carris ownership transfer to the Lisbon City CouncilPublished 5 September 2025Confirms 100% municipal ownership since February 2017.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2020. 6 of 7 sources carry a publication date, from 6 October 2022 to 5 September 2025.

When the sources were published

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas · pressLisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time API
  2. Lisboa Para Pessoas · pressLisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migration
  3. Lisboa Para Pessoas · pressLisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app
  4. Lisboa Para Pessoas · pressLisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google Maps
  5. Lisboa Para Pessoas · pressLisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle map
  6. ECO · pressECO — Carris ownership transfer to the Lisbon City Council

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Publication date recorded for 7 sources
  3. Entered the record

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 9 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 9 addressable claims, 7 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 9

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-1c3e74727f01f734 quantitative
has published a static GTFS schedule feed since 2020
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Transitland registry entry for the CARRIS feed records the published GTFS schedule feed and its history.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Transitland — CARRIS GTFS feed record
Claim 2 clm-ff7cc8b421ffa499 quantitative
tracks its fleet by GPS through the XTraN Passenger platform, contracted from Tecmic for about €3.4M between 2019 and 2020 and migrated through 2022
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The October 2022 report describes the migration to Tecmic's XTraN Passenger, a fleet-monitoring and passenger-information system, and states that between 2019 and 2020 Carris invested about €3.4 million in the contract according to the public procurement portal Base.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migration
Claim 3 clm-8ea5c2a0633dfc49 quantitative
Real-time positions reached Google Maps in December 2023 and the CARRISway app in June 2025
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The December 2023 report announces real-time Carris times in Google Maps; the June 2025 report describes CARRISway, previously a ticketing app, gaining live bus and tram positions.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google Maps
  2. Lisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle map
Claim 4 clm-0e2994815bb18508 quantitative
but Carris closed public access to the API in 2022, saying its data are 'public, which does not mean they are free'
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The October 2022 report states that API access ceased to be public and became restricted and time-controlled, and quotes Carris saying its data are public, which does not mean they are free.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time API
Claim 5 clm-d4068b08207e2c01 quantitative
GeoBus, a free iPhone app a volunteer had built from early 2020 to show where Carris buses were, stopped working in December 2022 when Carris changed the key; the developer had no notice either time
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The January 2023 report tells the developer's account: he began building GeoBus in early 2020, published it free on the App Store in April, lost access that summer without prior warning, regained it through a gateway, and lost it again in December 2022 when Carris changed the key, which made the app useless.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app
Claim 6 clm-cbb3dafdc55779d3 quantitative
The digital-rights association D3 called Carris 'an example not to follow' and pointed at Portugal's 2021 public-sector open-data law, which classes mobility data as high-value data that should be machine-readable, reachable by API and supplied free of charge
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The same report quotes D3 calling Carris an example not to follow, citing the 2021 public-sector open-data law and its treatment of mobility data as high-value data that must be machine-readable, API-accessible and free.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app
Claim 7 clm-a5419aea417fce7d descriptive
No ridership or reliability effect of the tracking itself has been published
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
None of the reports covering the platform, the Google Maps release or the CARRISway release gives any measure of ridership, punctuality or waiting time attributable to the tracking.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google Maps
  2. Lisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle map
  3. Lisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migration
Claim 8 clm-fa88fa153bc1ca45 descriptive
Carris says its GPS feed is 'public, which does not mean they are free' and gated it after an independent tracking app used it, while Metro de Lisboa's open API lets outside developers build their own tools
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The October 2022 report carries the quotation and contrasts Carris with Metro de Lisboa, which does publish an open API; the January 2023 report documents the independent app that lost access.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time API
  2. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app
Claim 9 clm-6b33e4c1077e3143 descriptive
the association that reviewed it answered that maintaining an API costs little and that third-party access does not technically harm the system
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
D3 is quoted saying the cost of maintaining an API is not significant and that from a technical standpoint there is no reason why third-party access would harm Carris's system.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-27-source-dating effective 2026-08-07 · created 2026-08-27

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:b784166a037c1e3e227bfcbdfc62315312853dd221e33606a2f07bc7ccd19b85
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
9
of 9 claims mapped
7
source dossiers
6
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Carris — Companhia Carris de Ferro de Lisboa
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (100% owner); XTraN platform delivered under a ~€3.4M contract with Tecmic (2019-2020)
Cost
≈€3.4M (Carris-Tecmic XTraN Passenger platform contract, 2019-2020)
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

7 source dossiers

Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris declines to open its real-time API lisboaparapessoas.pt · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-b4647ebd3673cef8
Publisher
Name not classified · lisboaparapessoas.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2022-10-06
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Operator quote ('public, not free'); explicit contrast with Metro de Lisboa's open API.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Lisboa Para Pessoas — XTraN Passenger platform migration lisboaparapessoas.pt · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-a99f7d0fecf80e1b
Publisher
Name not classified · lisboaparapessoas.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2022-10-14
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

~€3.4M Tecmic contract (2019-2020), live cutover 11 October 2022, GPS fleet-tracking capabilities.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris cuts off the independent GeoBus app lisboaparapessoas.pt · 4 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-1e691ffc8b517cbe
Publisher
Name not classified · lisboaparapessoas.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-01-05
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

D3 digital-rights association cites Portugal's 2021 Open Data Law.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Lisboa Para Pessoas — Carris real-time data reaches Google Maps lisboaparapessoas.pt · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-9a2bccb31498940f
Publisher
Name not classified · lisboaparapessoas.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-12-12
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

December 2023.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Lisboa Para Pessoas — CARRISway adds a live vehicle map lisboaparapessoas.pt · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-61b9b7de08027367
Publisher
Name not classified · lisboaparapessoas.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-06-04
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

June 2025 update, real-time to the second.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Transitland — CARRIS GTFS feed record transit.land · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-a9f3a7b2ea124a5e
Publisher
Name not classified · transit.land
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

A continuously updated feed registry entry rather than a dated article. No publication date is recorded: the page did not answer when this entry was checked.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
ECO — Carris ownership transfer to the Lisbon City Council eco.sapo.pt · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8307a4f743a6793a
Publisher
Name not classified · eco.sapo.pt
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-09-05
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-07
Dossier created
2026-08-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Confirms 100% municipal ownership since February 2017.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

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. 🇫🇷 Naolib Real-Time Transit Feeds: SIRI Adopted, GTFS-RT Dark · Nantes Two European operators publishing real-time feeds; Nantes shows what the national monitoring platform sees when one format silently stops.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else📖 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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