alurail — Indonesian Railway Radar & GAPEKA Timetable Platform

About AluRail

AluRail (Aluline TGV) is a free web-based platform that visualizes railway operations and train travel schedules across Indonesia. The service is available through aluline.id and aluline.my.id, developed independently by Alula (alula.web.id) for railway enthusiasts (railfans) and passengers seeking a more intuitive understanding of train movements and timetable operations.

How It Works

AluRail transforms official GAPEKA 2025 (Indonesia Railway Timetable Graph) data into an interactive geospatial visualization. Every train journey is reconstructed from scheduled departure and arrival times, station sequences, railway topology, and routing calculations to estimate how trains would move across the network.

Unlike conventional timetable viewers, AluRail continuously simulates train movement using a custom railway physics engine. The simulation considers various operational parameters including route geometry, train acceleration, braking, cruising speed, station dwell times, operational constraints, and other physical assumptions to estimate each train's position throughout its journey.

Whenever available, the platform also supports Crowdsourced Live Tracking. Passengers currently travelling on board may voluntarily share their GPS location. These telemetry reports are validated using map-matching algorithms and compared against the predicted GAPEKA route before being displayed to other users.

The Technology Behind AluRail

• PostgreSQL (PostGIS): Serves as the core geospatial database storing railway infrastructure, stations, and spatial relationships.
• Custom Railway Routing Engine: Implements graph-based routing algorithms including Dijkstra and A* to calculate railway paths, station connectivity, and operational routes.
• Railway Physics Engine: Simulates train movement by modelling acceleration, deceleration, cruising behaviour, station stops, speed restrictions, and travel progression based on timetable data.
• Viterbi Map-Matching: Validates crowdsourced GPS telemetry by matching noisy GPS observations onto the most probable railway track, improving live tracking reliability.
• Leaflet.js & OpenRailwayMap: Provide interactive map rendering and railway visualization layers.

Supported Railway Services

AluRail supports visualization for various railway services operating across Indonesia, including passenger, commuter, urban transit, heritage, and freight operations. Depending on data availability, the platform currently supports:

• Intercity Passenger Trains (KA Antar Kota)
• Whoosh High-Speed Railway
• Commuter Line
• Feeder Train Services
• Local Passenger Trains
• Freight Operations (Container, Cargo, Tanker, Coal, Cement and other freight services)
• LRT Jakarta
• LRT Jabodebek
• LRT South Sumatra (Palembang)
• Jakarta MRT
• Ambarawa Heritage Railway

Additional railway operators and future services may be introduced as more infrastructure and timetable data become available.

Platform Features

AluRail combines timetable simulation, geospatial analysis, and live community participation into a single railway visualization platform. Key features include:

• Follow Mode
  Automatically follows a selected train throughout its journey while continuously updating its estimated or live position.
• Live GPS Cast
  Passengers may voluntarily broadcast GPS telemetry while travelling onboard, allowing supported trains to display verified live positions instead of purely simulated movement.
• Spotting Mode
  Allows railfans to discover trains approaching nearby stations or railway crossings, making it easier to plan photography and train spotting activities.
• Enhanced Railway Physics
  Movement simulation considers railway gradient, elevation profile, track curvature, acceleration, braking, traction performance, speed restrictions, and operational constraints to produce more realistic train behaviour.
• Detailed Route Analytics
  Provides interactive charts including route elevation, curvature, gradient between stations, speed profile, and operational characteristics throughout the journey.
• Train Information
  Displays operational information about each service including operator, train category, route, schedule, formation details, and other service information.
• Rolling Stock Database
  Provides information about locomotives, EMUs, DMUs, coaches, wagons, and other railway vehicles used by supported services.
• Coach & Class Information
  Displays available passenger classes together with reference illustrations where available to help passengers identify onboard accommodation.
• Adaptive Train Rendering
  Train visualization automatically adjusts according to the current map zoom level. Different rendering modes are used to maintain smooth performance while displaying thousands of simultaneously simulated trains.
• Train Filtering
  Filter trains by service category such as Intercity, Commuter, High-Speed, Metro, LRT, Freight, Heritage, and other supported railway services.
• Regional Filtering
  Display trains operating within selected operational regions (Daerah Operasi / DAOP and other railway operational divisions) for easier monitoring.
• Points of Interest (POI)
  Explore railway-related locations including train spotting locations, photography viewpoints, railway landmarks, bridges, tunnels, stations, and other notable locations along the railway network.
• Depots & Maintenance Facilities
  View railway maintenance facilities including rolling stock depots, locomotive depots, maintenance workshops (Balai Yasa), stabling yards, and other operational infrastructure.

Disclaimer

AluRail is primarily a timetable simulation platform. Unless a train is actively sharing verified Live Tracking data, all train positions displayed on the map are computational estimations generated from published schedules and the platform's railway physics engine.

Although the simulation attempts to realistically reproduce railway operations, actual train movements may differ significantly due to dispatching decisions, signal aspects, operational priorities, temporary speed restrictions, maintenance work, weather conditions, delays, early departures, extraordinary operations, GPS inaccuracies, or many other real-world factors that cannot always be observed by the platform.

Even when Live Tracking is available, GPS accuracy depends on user participation, mobile device quality, satellite reception, and local environmental conditions. Therefore, displayed positions should always be considered informational rather than authoritative.

This service must not be used as an official operational reference for travel planning, ticketing decisions, passenger information, or railway operations. Always refer to official PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) information channels for accurate operational updates.

AluRail / Aluline TGV is an independent community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, partnered with, or officially associated with PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero), OpenStreetMap, OpenRailwayMap, or any other referenced organizations.

Made with ❣️ from Pejaten, Indonesia.