CTA Bus Tracker

A web application for tracking CTA buses in real-time.

Project Structure

The project consists of two main components:

• frontend/: Contains the web interface
• backend/: Contains the Flask API server

Backend Setup

1. Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd backend

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows, use: venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Start the backend server:

   python app.py

   The server will start on http://localhost:5000

Frontend Setup

The frontend is a static web application that can be served using any web server. For development, you can use Python's built-in HTTP server:

1. Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd frontend

2. Start a simple HTTP server:

   python -m http.server 8000

   The frontend will be available at http://localhost:8000

Connecting Frontend to Backend

The frontend is already configured to connect to the backend API at http://localhost:5000. Make sure both servers are running:

1. Backend server on port 5000
2. Frontend server on port 8000

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8000 to use the application.

Development

• Backend API endpoints are available at http://localhost:5000/api/
• Frontend static files are served from the frontend/ directory
• The main application logic is in backend/app.py
• Frontend JavaScript files are in frontend/js/
• Frontend styles are in frontend/css/

Requirements

• Python 3.7 or higher
• Modern web browser with JavaScript enabled
• Internet connection for CTA API access