Today I want to thank Torsten Grote for his work on Transportr, a Free Software public transport program for Android.
As there are so many amazing Free Software contributors out there, it is always difficult for me to decide what I want to write about on the "I love Free Software Day". In the past I thanked GnuPG contributors, developers of programs I use for my music setup, a coreboot developer, and others. As I try to travel as much as possible with public transportation, Transportr is one of the most useful programs on my mobile phone. So here a short overview so you understand why I dedicated this post to Torsten.
First of all, Transportr gives you access to travel information for many different public transportation providers all over the world. You do not have to install and update several apps for all the public transport providers in different countries and cities.
After you selected them once, you can afterwards switch between them easily.
You can search for nearby stations. For example which stations are available around FSFE's Berlin office.
As well as display them with OpenStreetmap data.
You can have a look at all departures from a train stop.
And of course find connections between two locations. For example from FSFE's Berlin office to Brussels.
When you decided which train you want to take, you can add the connection to your calendar with a click on the upper right, as well as regularly update the connection to see if there are any delays.
If you like what you saw, you can install Transportr from F-Droid.
Thank you Torsten! Thank you for this wonderful piece of Free Software, which makes my life easier!