ttc_skill

Overview

This skill provides real-time Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) information from the command line, including next arrivals, live vehicle positions, service alerts, and stop search. It focuses on surface transit (buses and streetcars) and supports JSON output for integration with scripts or agents. No authentication is required because all feeds are public.

How this skill works

The skill queries TTC GTFS-Realtime protobuf feeds for live vehicle positions, trip updates, and alerts, and combines them with bundled Open Toronto GTFS static data for stops and routes. Commands accept fuzzy stop names, stop IDs, or coordinates and can return human-readable or JSON output. Subway alerts are available when using the broader alert option.

When to use it

• Check next arrivals at a stop from a terminal or script
• Track live vehicle positions for a route or fleet number
• Find nearby stops and upcoming departures using coordinates
• Monitor service alerts or include subway alerts with a flag
• Integrate TTC data into automation via --json output

Best practices

• Use fuzzy stop names or stop codes to quickly find stops without exact IDs
• Prefer --json for reliable parsing in scripts and integrations
• Limit nearby searches to expected radius; default is 500m
• Combine vehicles and route commands to verify vehicle count and positions
• Use the status command for a quick system snapshot before deeper queries

Example use cases

• Script a morning routine that queries next arrivals for home and work stops and alerts you of delays
• Debug a route by listing active stops, live vehicles, and related alerts
• Power a transit dashboard that plots live vehicle positions for specific routes
• Search for a stop by partial name or noisy input (e.g., 'King Spadina') from the terminal
• Fetch machine-readable JSON for downstream processing or logging