For AI agents
Teams building AI agents: each stop names the MapMap MCP tool behind the fact.
Play this tour or play it in presenter mode (no site header, 20 px captions, the tour loops, and 90 seconds without input starts it again from the first stop). Space pauses and resumes, Page Down and Page Up step, Esc ends the tour. The tour finishes on MapMap for AI agents.
For a stand or a shared screen, the kiosk link is /globe?tour=public&present=1: the public tour in presenter mode. present=1 on its own is the plain globe without the site chrome, with no tour.
Each stop waits for its layers (at most 6 seconds) before its caption shows. A stop whose live feed is quiet or stale shows its fallback line for 3 seconds and moves on, so check the stops marked below before you present.
| Stop | Depends on | MCP tool | Time | If quiet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Geocode | The map only | geocode | 9 s | Shown as loaded |
| 2. Route | Route | route | 9 s | May be skipped |
| 3. Reachable area | Reach | reachable_area | 9 s | May be skipped |
| 4. Nearby stops | Live buses | nearby_stops | 9 s | May be skipped |
| 5. Next departures | Live buses, Live traffic | next_departures | 9 s | May be skipped |
1. Geocode
Caption: An agent asks geocode for Coventry and gets a point like this one.
If the feed is quiet: The map is still loading. On to the route tool.
MCP tool: geocode
- The hosted MCP server is at mcp.mapmap.ai/mcp: streamable HTTP, no key to connect, fair use.
- geocode turns a place name or address into coordinates; reverse_geocode goes the other way.
- Present your own gateway key and each metered call bills to it instead of running under fair use.
2. Route
Caption: The route tool gives an agent this London to Edinburgh drive.
If the feed is quiet: The route service did not answer in time, so this stop is skipped.
MCP tool: route
- route returns the drive with its distance, time and an encoded line an agent can draw.
- A route response pipes straight into the static map API for agents that see images.
- check_clearance_on_route and check_adr_tunnel answer truck questions on the same route.
3. Reachable area
Caption: reachable_area gives an agent drive-time rings like these, free flow.
If the feed is quiet: The reach service did not answer in time, so this stop is skipped.
MCP tool: reachable_area
- reachable_area returns how far a vehicle gets in a time from a point.
- The rings here are 15, 30 and 60 minutes by car from Brighton, without live traffic.
- Useful for catchments, service areas and delivery promises.
4. Nearby stops
Caption: nearby_stops lists the bus stops and lines calling near a point like this.
If the feed is quiet: Brighton's bus feed is quiet right now. nearby_stops still answers.
MCP tool: nearby_stops
- nearby_stops answers from NaPTAN and the BODS timetables, England only.
- The live positions drawn here are GET /v1/transit/vehicles, not an MCP tool.
- Positions as bus operators report them, usually every one to two minutes, eased between reports.
5. Next departures
Caption: next_departures gives an agent timetabled departures, labelled as timetable.
If the feed is quiet: London's bus feed is quiet right now. That is the end of the tour.
MCP tool: next_departures
- next_departures returns timetabled departures from a stop, with a label to show beside them.
- No journey planning or arrival predictions are claimed.
- Per-client setup for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and others is on /docs/mcp.
Aircraft
The Aircraft row (off by default, planes=1 in a link) shows civil aircraft of known type from adsb.lol, a community ADS-B network, under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. The globe reads one small file that MapMap's server rewrites every half minute from adsb.lol's public API; each aircraft's position is refreshed every few minutes, carried forward from its speed and heading, and eased to the new report, so it is shown as a model moving smoothly, not as real time.
- Only civil aircraft whose type adsb.lol knows are included, and only where adsb.lol has receivers: there is no coverage over most oceans.
- Airline flights show their callsign and type. Every other aircraft, including private and business aircraft and helicopters, is shown without identity: the file does not carry a registration, an airframe code or a callsign for them, so the page cannot show one.
- Never shown: military aircraft, aircraft sending an emergency code, aircraft on the FAA's privacy list, aircraft adsb.lol marks as of special interest, and aircraft on the ground. No history, no routes, no origin or destination.
- The file is a filtered extract of adsb.lol's data and is declared ODbL itself; nothing of MapMap's is mixed into it, and only the latest file is kept.
- Removal requests: hello@mapmap.ai.
Lightning
The Lightning row (off by default, lightning=1 in a link) shows every flash the Geostationary Lightning Mappers on NOAA's GOES-19 (GOES-East) and GOES-18 (GOES-West) satellites saw in the last minute. Each satellite publishes one file every 20 seconds on NOAA's Open Data Dissemination programme, about 10 to 15 seconds after it closes; MapMap's server reads each new file, keeps the last 5 minutes, and the globe replays the flashes at their real millisecond timing about 40 seconds behind real time. That is the last minute, not now.
- Coverage is the outline on the map: the Americas, the Atlantic and the East Pacific, about 52 degrees north to 52 degrees south. Europe, Africa and Asia are seen by other satellites, so an empty sky there means no data, not no storms.
- Both satellites see the band between about 127 and 85 degrees west. Each flash is kept from one of them only, split at 106.1 degrees west, so nothing is counted twice. A fixed spot that repeats in one pixel with no storm round it is not lightning and is dropped.
- Positions are rounded to 0.01 degrees (about a kilometre; a GLM pixel is about 8 to 14 km across). A flash's size on the map follows its radiant energy.
- Lightning: NOAA GOES-19/18 GLM, processed by MapMap. NOAA data disseminated through NODD are open to the public and can be used as desired; no endorsement by NOAA is stated or implied. Nothing older than 5 minutes is kept.