TransCAPI
Live bus and rail departures, bus positions, disruptions and journey planning for Great Britain.
Runs on your machine from its package; the steps are below.
What it does
- Reads
- Writes
- High impact
At most: only reads or looks up information.
What it costs
FreeOdel charges nothing per call. The publisher may charge for its own service.
Runs locally over stdio
This server isn't hosted — your MCP client launches it from a package registry. Use one of the commands below, or drop the config into your client (e.g. Claude Desktop).
Run
uvx transcapi-mcp
MCP client config
{
"mcpServers": {
"transcapi": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"transcapi-mcp"
]
}
}
}TransCAPI MCP server
Lets AI assistants such as Claude answer questions about public transport in Great Britain with live data: "When's the next train from Leeds to York, and is it on time?", "Where's the 52 bus?", "Is anything disrupting my route home?"
It connects an assistant to TransCAPI, which covers England, Scotland and Wales: stops and places, bus and rail departures with live running, live bus positions, disruptions and journey planning.
Setup
-
Get a free API key at https://www.transcapi.com/signup (1,000 requests a day, every endpoint).
-
Add the server to your MCP client. For Claude Desktop, in
claude_desktop_config.json:json{ "mcpServers": { "transcapi": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["transcapi-mcp"], "env": { "TRANSCAPI_API_KEY": "your-key" } } } }For Claude Code:
bashclaude mcp add transcapi --env TRANSCAPI_API_KEY=your-key -- uvx transcapi-mcpOr install it yourself with
pip install transcapi-mcpand runtranscapi-mcp.
Tools
| Tool | What it answers |
|---|---|
search_places | Find a town, village, postcode or stop by name |
nearby_stops | Bus, tram and rail stops near a point, with which way the buses go |
nearby_stations | Rail stations near a point |
bus_departures | What's leaving (or arriving at) a bus stop, with live times for tracked buses |
rail_departures | Live trains at a station: expected times, platforms, cancellations, delay reasons |
train_service | Every station one train calls at, live for today |
bus_service | Every stop one bus journey calls at, and where the bus is now |
live_buses | Buses on the road near a point, with delays where tracked |
disruptions | Planned works, incidents and line status, by area, line or a journey's route |
plan_journey | Public transport journeys between two points (South and West Yorkshire and West Sussex for now) |
All tools are read-only.
Configuration
| Variable | |
|---|---|
TRANSCAPI_API_KEY | Required. Your TransCAPI key. |
TRANSCAPI_BASE_URL | Optional. Defaults to https://api.transcapi.com. |
Attribution
TransCAPI is built on official open data. If you show its data to other people, credit the sources as described at https://www.transcapi.com/docs/data-sources.
Licence
MIT.
