Find a Public-Transport Route on Transport NSW

Purpose

Given a natural-language trip query — origin + destination + (optional) arrival/departure time — return the public-transport itineraries offered by the official NSW trip planner: each itinerary's departure time, arrival time, duration, leg-by-leg mode + route number, transfer count, walk time, fare, and real-time delay status. Read-only — never books, never opens a checkout flow (the planner has no checkout — only journey suggestions).

When to Use

• "Find me a way from Central Station to Bondi Beach arriving by 5 PM tomorrow."
• "What's the next train from Town Hall to Parramatta?"
• Scheduling / commuter assistants that compare itineraries across departure windows.
• Deterministic E2E tests in CI/CD: the URL-param surface gives a single GET that reproducibly drives the planner — no LLM reasoning required on replay.

Workflow

The Transport NSW trip planner accepts the full origin / destination / time triple via URL query parameters on https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan. A single GET reproduces the same state the UI would reach after five clicks, so the recommended path is to (1) resolve each location string to a stop / suburb ID via the typeahead, then (2) construct the canonical URL.

The Browser fallback (driving the form click-by-click) is documented at the end and is what you should use when you don't yet have IDs cached.

1. URL pattern (the deterministic playbook)

https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan
    ?from=<originId>
    &to=<destinationId>
    [&arrivalDateTime=YYYYMMDDHHMM]          # arrive-by; Sydney local time
    [&departureDateTime=YYYYMMDDHHMM]        # leave-at;  Sydney local time
    [&excludedModes=<csv-of-mode-ids>]       # e.g. 11 = school bus, auto-added by the "Plan a trip" splash button

• Omitting both arrivalDateTime and departureDateTime → "Leaving now" (server uses Sydney current time, not the browser's clock).
• IDs come in two shapes — both work in from and to:
  • Numeric stop ID (6 digits): a single stop / station. Example: 200060 = Central Station, Sydney.
  • Suburb / place ID: structured suburbID:<int>:1:<URL-encoded-label>:<x>:<y>:GDAV. Example: suburbID:95361002:1:Bondi+Beach:4895254:3758264:GDAV. Use this when the user names a suburb / POI rather than a specific stop — the planner routes to a representative point in the suburb.
• arrivalDateTime / departureDateTime are in YYYYMMDDHHMM and must be interpreted in Australia/Sydney local time (not the browser's TZ — see gotcha). A value in the past returns an empty alert ("No results found"), not an error.

Example: Central → Bondi Beach arriving by 17:00 Wed 20 May 2026:

https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan?from=200060&to=suburbID:95361002:1:Bondi+Beach:4895254:3758264:GDAV&arrivalDateTime=202605201700

2. Resolve a location string → ID (typeahead)

When the user names an origin or destination without a cached ID, drive the search modal once and harvest the URL the planner produces:

1. browse open https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan
2. browse click @<ref of "Origin: No location selected"> — opens the search modal.
3. browse click @<ref of textbox "Search input"> then browse type "<location string>".
4. browse wait timeout 2500 — typeahead is debounced.
5. The result list has three filter tabs: All / Stops · N / Places · M. Click the first result whose label exactly matches the user's string. Use the Stops tab when the user named a station (Central, Town Hall) and the Places tab when they named a suburb / landmark (Bondi Beach, Opera House).
6. After the click, browse get url — the new URL contains the resolved from= (or to=) ID. Cache it; the IDs are stable across sessions.
7. Repeat for the destination (the Destination button is the second sibling beneath Origin).

The same typeahead is what you'd use to discover new IDs at runtime; once resolved, they should be persisted in a local cache so a CI test never re-discovers them.

3. Set arrival / departure time

The cleanest path is to bypass the UI date picker entirely and pass arrivalDateTime / departureDateTime in the URL (see §1). If for some reason you must drive the picker:

1. browse click @<ref of "Selected time: Leaving now"> — opens the "Choose date and time" dialog.
2. browse click @<ref of "Select Arrive by option"> (or "Select Leave at option").
3. The three comboboxes (Day, Hour, Minute) are custom listboxes, not native <select> — browse select will return selected: []. Instead, click the combobox to open it, then click the desired option ref. Available values:
   • Day: Today (<weekday>), Tomorrow (<weekday>), then absolute dates DD MMM (<weekday>) for ~14 days ahead.
   • Hour: 00–23 (24-hour).
   • Minute: 00, 05, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 (5-minute granularity only).
4. browse click @<ref of "Apply"> — the URL now carries arrivalDateTime= / departureDateTime= and results refresh in ~2–4 s.

4. Read the itineraries

Once the planner has both endpoints + a valid time, the results panel renders a vertical list of button: elements — one per itinerary. Parse each button's aria-label — it's a structured, comma-separated string that enumerates every field cleanly:

"Leaving in <N> minutes
 Transfer to <mode-1> Transfer to <mode-2> Walk for <N>min
 <interchange-stop>
 Departing at HH:MM, Duration is N minutes, Arriving at HH:MM[, next day]
 Fare is $X.XX
 [On-time | <N> min late | Real-time unavailable]
 from <first-stop>, Platform <N>
 This service is Accessible
 There is an alert for this service"

Each leg is one Transfer to <mode> <route-number> clause (e.g. Transfer to T4 train, Transfer to 379 bus). Walking legs are Walk for <N>min. The final segment usually ends with the interchange stop name (e.g. Bondi Junction).

The same data appears as child StaticText nodes (16:22, 34min, $5.63, ...) but those are formatted in the browser's local TZ, while the aria-label is in Sydney AEST. Always parse the aria-label for deterministic output. (See gotchas.)

Above the list, four tabs gate the mode set: Public Transport (default) / Walk / Cycle / Drive. The Drive tab returns a single car-route summary, not a list — keep the Public Transport tab selected unless the user explicitly asked for driving or active-transport directions.

Browser fallback (use when no cached IDs)

sid=$(browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive --verified --proxies | …)
export BROWSE_SESSION="$sid"
browse open "https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan" --remote
browse wait load --remote && browse wait timeout 2000 --remote
# Origin
browse click @<ref "Origin: No location selected">
browse click @<ref "Search input"> && browse type "Central Station" --remote
browse wait timeout 2500 --remote
browse click @<ref of first matching result>          # URL gets ?from=200060
# Destination
browse click @<ref "Destination: No location selected">
browse click @<ref "Search input"> && browse type "Bondi Beach" --remote
browse wait timeout 2500 --remote
browse click @<ref of first matching result>          # URL gets &to=suburbID:…
# Time (optional)
browse click @<ref "Selected time: Leaving now">
browse click @<ref "Select Arrive by option">
browse click @<ref Day combobox> ; browse click @<ref "Tomorrow (Wed)">
browse click @<ref Hour combobox> ; browse click @<ref "17">
browse click @<ref Minute combobox>; browse click @<ref "00">
browse click @<ref "Apply">
# Read results
browse snapshot --remote      # parse button aria-labels (see §4)

The first-page render after Apply takes 2–4 s; browse wait timeout 4000 after the Apply click before snapshotting is reliable. A stealth + residential-proxy session (--verified --proxies) is what was used during skill development and is the safer default; the site is fronted by CloudFront but does not appear to gate on bot-detection for this surface.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• READ-ONLY. The planner has no booking surface — itineraries are itineraries — but never click into a "Buy ticket" / "Add to Opal" link if one appears in a banner.
• Time-zone disagreement in the rendered DOM. The aria-label on each itinerary button uses Sydney AEST (UTC+10), but the visible StaticText nodes (the 16:22, 34min, 23:55 strings) use the browser session's local timezone. Verified on a Browserbase US-West session (PDT, UTC-7): aria-label "Departing at 16:22" vs StaticText "23:22" — a 17-hour offset for the same departure. Always parse the aria-label; treat the StaticText fields as display chrome, not data. If you must use StaticText, force the session TZ via Australia/Sydney. CI tests should pin the session to Sydney TZ to make the StaticText and aria-label converge.
• arrivalDateTime / departureDateTime are in Sydney local time, not the browser's clock. A value in the past returns the empty alert: "No results found / There were no services found" panel — there is no explicit error message. If the planner returns "No results" for a route you know is well-served (e.g. Central → Bondi Beach), the most common cause is a stale arrivalDateTime whose date is already in Sydney's past.
• The Day / Hour / Minute pickers are custom listboxes, not <select> elements. browse select @<ref> <value> returns selected: [] and silently does nothing. Click the combobox first, then click the option ref inside the resulting listbox. Minutes are 5-minute increments only (00, 05, 10, …, 55).
• The picker's "Today" / "Tomorrow" labels are anchored to the browser's clock, not Sydney's. On a US-West session, "Today (Tue)" can correspond to Sydney's Wednesday. If you need a specific calendar date, construct the YYYYMMDDHHMM string yourself and pass it via the URL rather than relying on relative-day clicks.
• from and to accept two distinct ID shapes — a 6-digit numeric stop ID (e.g. 200060 = Central Station) or a structured suburb / place ID suburbID:<int>:1:<URL-encoded-label>:<x>:<y>:GDAV (e.g. suburbID:95361002:1:Bondi+Beach:4895254:3758264:GDAV). Both from and to accept either shape independently. Picking a "Stop" in the typeahead yields the numeric shape; picking a "Place" yields the suburb shape.
• excludedModes=11 is auto-injected by the splash "Plan a trip" button. Mode 11 appears to be school-bus services. Directly hitting /trip-planner/plan?from=…&to=… without excludedModes includes all modes, which is usually what you want. Other mode IDs (deduced from the "Mode (7)" filter chip showing 7 modes — Train, Metro, Bus, Light rail, Ferry, Coach, School bus): pass as comma-separated, e.g. excludedModes=4,9 to exclude Light rail and Ferry.
• Trip preference is a separate filter, not a URL param. "Earliest arrival" (default) / "Fewest interchanges" / "Least walking" / "Fastest". Set via the button: Selected trip preference: Earliest arrival chip on the results page — there is no tripPref= query param.
• Results auto-populate the moment both from and to are set — there is no explicit "Search" / "Submit" button on the form. The "Updated: HH:MM" button in the results panel is a refresh button, not a submit.
• First result is sometimes a "Place" with the same name as a "Stop". When typing "Bondi Beach", the top result ([3-2451] div: Bondi Beach) is the suburb (Places tab); the next two are bus stops named "Bondi Beach" (Stops tab). Use the Places tab when the user said "Bondi Beach" generically, and the Stops tab when they specified a stop ID / station.
• Don't trust /trip or /trip-planner as the entry URL — both render a marketing splash with a "Plan a trip" button, not the form. Open /trip-planner/plan directly to skip the splash. (Hitting /trip-planner/plan with no params lands on the empty form, ready for input — equivalent to clicking the splash button.)
• The official Trip Planner API exists but requires OAuth keys. Transport for NSW publishes a REST trip-planner API at opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au (TfNSW Open Data Hub) — if the calling agent has a registered API key, prefer that over scraping. For unauthenticated agents, the URL-param surface documented here is the cheapest deterministic path. Don't waste cycles trying to hit the API anonymously.
• No /sapi-style public JSON behind the page. The site is a SPA that calls authenticated TfNSW backends; cookie-less direct hits against the internal XHR endpoints return 401/403. The accessibility-tree-driven scrape of aria-label strings is the supported public surface.

Expected Output

{
  "query": {
    "origin": { "raw": "Central Station", "id": "200060", "resolved_label": "Central Station, Sydney" },
    "destination": { "raw": "Bondi Beach", "id": "suburbID:95361002:1:Bondi+Beach:4895254:3758264:GDAV", "resolved_label": "Bondi Beach" },
    "time_anchor": { "mode": "arrive_by", "datetime_local": "2026-05-20T17:00", "tz": "Australia/Sydney" }
  },
  "url": "https://transportnsw.info/trip-planner/plan?from=200060&to=suburbID:95361002:1:Bondi+Beach:4895254:3758264:GDAV&arrivalDateTime=202605201700",
  "itineraries": [
    {
      "depart_local": "16:22",
      "arrive_local": "16:56",
      "next_day": false,
      "duration_min": 34,
      "fare_aud": 5.63,
      "transfers": 1,
      "walk_min": 6,
      "realtime_status": "Real-time unavailable",
      "first_stop": "Central Station, Platform 24",
      "interchange": "Bondi Junction",
      "accessible": true,
      "alerts": true,
      "legs": [
        { "mode": "train", "route": "T4" },
        { "mode": "bus",   "route": "379" },
        { "mode": "walk",  "duration_min": 6 }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "result_status": "ok"
}

Distinct outcome shapes:

// ok — one or more itineraries returned
{ "result_status": "ok", "itineraries": [ ... ] }

// empty — planner returned the "No results found" alert (most often: arrivalDateTime in the past, or genuinely unreachable)
{ "result_status": "no_results", "itineraries": [], "alert_text": "There were no services found. Refine your preferences and try again." }

// ambiguous_location — the typeahead returned 0 matches or multiple equally-ranked matches for an origin/destination string
{ "result_status": "ambiguous_location", "field": "destination", "raw": "...", "candidates": [ { "label": "...", "id": "..." }, ... ] }