I’ll be talking about KDE Itinerary at the German Open Transport Meetup next week, Wednesday March 10th at 20:00 CET on Big Blue Button.

Open Transport Meetup

German Open Transport Meetup Logo.

The German Open Transport Meetup started mid last year, as a get-together for anyone interested or involved in mobility or transportation in general, and in Open Data/Free Software in that context in particular.

Being forced to be virtual from the start due to the pandemic is probably what gave it the critical mass to keep up the unusual high pace for such an event with its bi-weekly rhythm, and with no shortage on topics in sight.

Many of the things discussed at the meetup so far had immediate impact on KDE Itinerary (and the KPublicTransport library in particular), the biggest example probably being the rental bike/scooter support. A large number of the attendees actually working for local or national transport operators or public administration has also been invaluable for getting first-hand access and insights.

While mostly in German and sometimes covering very German-spcific topics, there have been international guests as well, like the Digitransit team from Helsinki or the Navitia team from Paris (who had previously invited me to present KDE Itinerary at the French Open Transport Meetup in 2018).

As KDE Itinerary isn’t targeting a specific country I’d love to eventually see something similar to the national Open Transport Meetups emerge on the international level as well, or at least on an European level as a next step, I still have questions about the Swiss railway QR code date/time format for example ;)