E-Bike data in UnifiedAPI & cycle data outage 22:00 09/09 - 06:00 12/09

Open Data
1

Following the recent announcement about Satander Cycles E-Bikes:

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2022/august/santander-cycles-to-launch-e-bikes-in-london-from-september

We are happy to announce that the e-bike data is also going to be available in /Place/BikePoint endpoint.

New parameters:

  • NbStandardBikes - number of available standard bikes
  • NbEBikes - number of available E-Bikes

Both parameters are already added in the API, but return NULL until the data is coming through. This is planned for 06:00 on Monday 12th September.

Example output for BikePoint1
https://api.tfl.gov.uk/Place/BikePoints_1

{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.Place, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“id”:“BikePoints_1”,“url”:“/Place/BikePoints_1”,“commonName”:“River Street , Clerkenwell”,“placeType”:“BikePoint”,“additionalProperties”:[{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“TerminalName”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“001023”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“Installed”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“true”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“Locked”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“false”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“InstallDate”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“1278947280000”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“RemovalDate”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“Temporary”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“false”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“NbBikes”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“1”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“NbEmptyDocks”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“18”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“NbDocks”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“19”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“NbStandardBikes”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”},{“$type”:“Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities.AdditionalProperties, Tfl.Api.Presentation.Entities”,“category”:“Description”,“key”:“NbEBikes”,“sourceSystemKey”:“BikePoints”,“value”:“”,“modified”:“2022-08-18T13:24:57.69Z”}],“childrenUrls”:[],“lat”:51.529163,“lon”:-0.10997}

NOTE:

“The scheme will be temporarily closed between 2200 on Friday 9 September and 0600 on Monday 12 September to allow its systems to be upgraded in preparation for the changes. During this time bikes that are on hire may be returned, but no hires will be able to be made."

I will confirm to what is going to happen to the data during the closure.

Jakub

2

Thanks.

Will I be able to still be able to grab the whole dataset in one go using https://api.tfl.gov.uk/BikePoint as this is very efficient as it allows us to show BikePoints near specified locations (ie, stations)

image
image1300×1356 96.1 KB

using Postgres’s earthdistance/cube extensions from out own systems without having to bother the TfL calls in real time (just every 5 minutes in a cron).

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Hi Brian,
We are not changing anything to the API other than adding new features / parameters.
So the answer to your questions should be ‘yes’ :).

Kind regards,
Jakub

1 Like
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@JakubGasiorowski

That’s great thanks.

5

Hello,
Following up on my previous post, I can confirm that there will be no data coming into the cycle API feed between 22:00 09th Sept and 06:00 12th Sept.

6

Hi Jakub,

Will the parameter ‘NbBikes’ continue existing after the launch of the e-bikes?

Thanks,

Nick

1 Like
7

hi @ndjik

I believe this will remain and will be an aggregated value of both e-bikes and standard bikes.

Thanks,
James

2 Likes
9

Correct James, the API end point is ready and won’t change. So the NbBikes will remain and will be the sum of e-bikes and non-e-bikes.

Kind regards,
Jakub

2 Likes
10

Hello,

We’ve been informed that the rollout of eBikes into the Santander Cycles scheme will not be going ahead on Monday as previously informed.

The suspension of the scheme over the weekend is still going ahead to ensure all the technical elements are in place for when the eBikes are deployed to the docks.

thanks,
James

11

Hi James, I was just about to send this update!
Thanks, I can confirm the above is true. We will make an update on when the new e-bike will be flowing through.

Cheers,
Jakub

12

Slight update to @jamesevans and @JakubGasiorowski messages. As mentioned before the physical ebikes will not be deployed for customers on Monday.
However eBikes will be used to run Post implementation testing on the live environment which was planed as part of this go live.

As NbEBikes is already available as mentioned in the initial post this will mean that ebike data will be visible (although on a far smaller scale). Any ebike data displayed between now and the formal roll out of the physical ebikes will be live testing data.

Thanks,
Luke

13

Hello, as some of you might’ve already noticed, the e-bike data is now live.