GoHoos

Real-time UVA transit app with live bus tracking, route exploration, and trip planning for UTS riders on Grounds and in Charlottesville.

Built to fix the gap between UTS's official app and what students actually need to navigate Grounds.

Status

Live today

• Trip planner (home) — pick a destination on the map or from campus shortcuts, get ranked route options (walk + ride, at most one transfer), and step through the itinerary on the map
• Routes — Mapbox map with UTS route lines and stops (GTFS), live vehicle positions, search/toggle by route, and bus detail popups (speed, route, passenger count when available)
• About — product overview, feature walkthrough, and roadmap

Under active development

• More accurate ETAs — traffic-, dwell-, and speed-aware arrival estimates
• Break / stop notifications — alerts when a bus is on break or reaches a stop you care about

GoHoos is an independent student project and is not affiliated with the University of Virginia, UVA Transportation Services, or TransLoc.

Tech stack

Layer	Tools
Frontend	Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
Maps	Mapbox GL JS
Transit data	GTFS (static routes, shapes, stops) + UVA TransLoc vehicle feed (via Next.js /api/vehicles)
Trip planning	Client-side routing in the Next.js app (ranked by estimated travel time)
Backend	Express — WIP; reserved for future ETA prediction, tracking, and notifications

Project structure

frontend/   Next.js app — UI, Mapbox map, GTFS JSON, trip planner, `/api/vehicles` TransLoc proxy
backend/    Express API — scaffold only for now (planned ETA / notification work)

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• A Mapbox access token

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

Create frontend/.env.local:

NEXT_PUBLIC_MAPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_mapbox_token_here

Start the dev server:

npm run dev

Live vehicle positions and capacity are fetched server-side from TransLoc through GET /api/vehicles (polled about every 5 seconds on the home planner and routes map). The Express backend/ package is not required for local development.

Open http://localhost:3000 for the trip planner, http://localhost:3000/routes for the live route map, or http://localhost:3000/about for the product overview.

GTFS data (optional)

Static route data lives in frontend/src/data/json/. To regenerate from raw GTFS files in frontend/src/data/raw/:

cd frontend
npm run convert:gtfs

Contact

Built by Alan Tobin and Chiebuka Onuoha — feedback and issues welcome on GitHub Issues.