Wrzeszcz.site: A Smart Departure Board for Platform Users

Gdańsk Wrzeszcz station serves SKM, PKM, and long-distance trains. You're on the platform, with five minutes to spare and one crucial question: Is my train running, and from which track? The answer is typically scattered across multiple apps, each demanding a different interaction.

I built a website that answers this with a single glance: wrzeszcz.site.

Live Data, Not a Static Timetable

The board refreshes every thirty seconds, displaying real-time delays, not just the scheduled timetable. This is a critical distinction: a scheduled timetable tells you how things *should* be, but passengers need to know how things *are*. Next to the departure time, I display the platform and track. In Wrzeszcz, this information isn't always obvious, and running to the wrong platform can cost you exactly that one train.

The technical implementation here is less interesting than the design decisions. Fetching the data is a matter of querying and parsing. The harder part was figuring out what to do when the data source goes silent or returns garbage. A site that shows nothing in such a situation is worse than no site at all, because users will stand there waiting for something that will never appear. That's why, in the absence of live data, the scheduled timetable is displayed with a clear annotation indicating its source.

What Not to Show

The initial version displayed everything: full routes, operator, train number, rolling stock type. It looked like a spreadsheet. I discarded half of it, keeping only what directly answers the platform user's core questions: time, delay, destination, platform, and track.

Other frequently needed passenger services were placed alongside as separate tiles: ticket purchase with links to operators, taxi ordering, and a brief neighborhood guide. Each is accessible with a single tap, not a journey through multiple screens.

A Context-Aware Assistant

Additionally, I integrated a language model-based assistant that responds in both Polish and English. This wasn't merely to incorporate 'AI' for its own sake, but because half the questions at a train station aren't about schedules: Where to eat? How to get to the beach? Will I make my flight? These are questions the departure board can't answer, and a general search engine would respond too vaguely.

A Service Designed for Sustainability

Wrzeszcz.site includes an advertising space, which is a conscious decision, not an afterthought. A project that generates traffic should at least cover its own hosting costs; otherwise, it ends up in the trash after a year, along with the domain fee.

Key Takeaways

The true value of such a service doesn't lie in the technology itself, but in someone taking the time to consider the user's context at the moment of interaction. Think about it: five minutes, one hand free, dim light, and the train departing any moment. All design decisions stemmed from this single scenario.

Check it out: wrzeszcz.site. If you have an idea for a similar service for your city or company, feel free to reach out; I'd be happy to chat.