Vienna Departures Screensaver
The Vienna Departures screensaver shows live countdowns from Wiener Linien's own open-data monitors, gathered key-less by the pipeline. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Vienna Departures screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
Live countdowns from Wiener Linien's own open-data monitors, gathered key-less by the pipeline. Vienna publishes per platform rather than per stop, so several monitors are merged, and each service carries whether that particular vehicle is step-free.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours and any options can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
How Vienna's departure monitors work
Wiener Linien is the city-owned company responsible for Vienna's U-Bahn, tram and bus services, and it publishes real-time departure data in the same form that drives the displays at its stops. Its documentation organises the data around monitors, one per stop point (identified by an RBL number), rather than one per named stop, so a station with several platforms is made up of several monitors that this saver merges into one board.
The monitor interface supplies real or planned times for roughly the next 70 minutes for a stop point, together with the line label, direction and a countdown in minutes. A countdown of zero means the vehicle is arriving or leaving right now. The data also includes a flag for whether that particular vehicle is barrier-free, meaning step-free for wheelchairs and prams, which can differ between two trams of the same line on the same afternoon.
The numbers are real-time predictions rather than timetable promises, so they move as traffic changes, and during disruptions a line can briefly vanish from the board. The stops shown are a selection, not the whole network.
A worked example
Live countdowns from Wiener Linien's own open-data monitors, gathered key-less by the pipeline. Vienna publishes per platform rather than per stop, so several monitors are merged, and each service carries whether that particular vehicle is step-free.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- No. This source is fully key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- What does a countdown of 0 mean?
- The vehicle is due immediately or is already at the platform.
- Why is the barrier-free flag per vehicle?
- Vehicles of different types run on the same lines, and only some are step-free. The flag describes the specific service listed in the departure.
- Are these timetable times?
- No, they are live predictions where available, and the interface can fall back to planned times. They can differ from the printed timetable when trams or buses are early, late or diverted.