Transport stops (GB)

Updated: 1st April 2025

The National Public Transport Access Nodes (NaPTAN) dataset provides the locations and details for uniquely identifying all public transport access points in England, Scotland and Wales. Below we present visualisations for various different StopType. Read the notes on the difference between stops and access points.

On street bus & coach stops

Please see the notes for how we count the number of stops.

On street bus & coach stops per square kilometre

Tram & metro stops

Tram & metro may include some tourist stops such as Scarborough's Victorian Cliff Railway.

Please see the notes for how we count the number of stops.

Tram & metro stops per square kilometre

Train stations

Please see the notes for how we count the number of stops.

Train stations per square kilometre

Notes

"Stops" versus "access points"§

What we may think of as an individual "stop" (e.g. a bus stop or train station) may be represented by multiple "access nodes". For example, a train station could have a node for its entrance, a node for each platform, and a node for the main area of platforms.

Bus and coach stops§

For bus and coach stops, we only count StopType BCT, which corresponds to "On street" bus or coach stops.

Tram/metro, and train stations§

For tram/metro, and train station stops, we only count stops denoted as "Access areas". According to the NaPTAN schema guide, an access area is defined as: "an interchange area within the station - typically the main area of platforms.". We do this to provide an estimate for the number of stations/stops that you could travel between and to hopefully avoid any double counting based on the number of platforms or multiple entrances.

Coordinate conversions

Thank you to Hannah Fry and F. Malina for the python code to convert OSGB36 to WGS84.