Jannis

-- What do you do? Why do you do it? Public transportation is a great thing, but stuck within the status quo. **Help me making public transport more user-friendly, machine-readable and accessible.** The closed systems it currently is being run with do not play well with our connected, fast-paced digital world. **Proper APIs and open data are the basis for useful apps and accessible services.** Public transportation will only have its *full* positive impact on social mobility, the environment and the city once it is as user-friendly as private means of transport, such as cars and taxis. I got in touch with the [Berlin public transport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Berlin) APIs by accident and I went down the rabbit hole, **exploring what needs to be done in order to make using public transport services in Berlin, Germany and Europe more convenient.** Fast forward four years, **this has become my daily endeavour**: - [I run multiple APIs](https://transport.rest/) that provide public transport data to apps and services. I want to maintain and enhance them further, e.g. by combining data from multiple sources. - Because the IT behind public transport networks is mostly monopolised throughout Europe, [many of my libraries](https://github.com/derhuerst/vbb-modules) can also be used to access other systems. Expanding their coverage is something that requires work. - With friends, I created the [Friendly Public Transport Format](https://github.com/public-transport/friendly-public-transport-format), which is an attempt (yet another) to create a truly user-friendly and un-overengineered format for public transport data. I want to create tooling to convert from and to other common formats like [GTFS](https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/). - All of my code is [open source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_(disambiguation)) and I try to document all the knowledge I acquire. If I stopped working on this, others would be able to continue. -- Why do you need money for this? ***Connecting* public transport networks, for the benefit of everyone, is something that almost no company considers necessary.** Right now, I'm in the priveleged position of being able to live off what I have earned at my previous job at *Deutsche Bahn*. Financial support will allow me to keep working on what I think is needed for passenger-friendly, accessible public transport services. Cheers! 🚌 💻 ✨

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