Why Oslo's metro is not shown on real-time maps
The Oslo metro is not on any real-time map, and it is not the maps' fault. Here are the measurements that show what Ruter actually shares — and what it does not.
Open any real-time map of Norwegian public transport and look at Oslo. You will find Vy's regional buses, the airport buses to Gardermoen, the trains through the Oslo tunnel. What you will not find is the metro. Nor the trams, nor Ruter's city buses.
The most common explanation is that the map "hasn't caught up with Oslo yet". That is not true. The reason lies with Ruter, and it is simple once you see the numbers.
Two kinds of real time
Norwegian public transport data is gathered at Entur, the government's national hub for timetable data. Almost every real-time map, app and display at the stops gets its data from there. But Entur does not have one real-time service — it has two, and they answer completely different questions:
- Expected times tell you when the bus will reach each stop. This is the number you see on the departure board and in the travel apps: "Line 2 to Ellingsrudåsen, 3 min".
- Vehicle positions tell you where the vehicle is right now, as latitude and longitude. This is what a map needs to draw a symbol.
A company can provide the first without providing the second. That is exactly what Ruter does.
The measurements
We queried Entur's position service directly on 17 September 2026, with no geographic limit — all of Norway, all companies:
| Query | Number of vehicles | Who responded |
|---|---|---|
| All metro trains in Norway | 0 | no one |
| All trams in Norway | 2 | both in Trondheim (Gråkallbanen) |
| Everything Ruter reports | 0 | no one |
| All trains in Norway | 91 | Vy, Flytoget, SJ Nord, Go-Ahead |
Zero metro trains in the whole country. Not "few", not "delayed" — none. The only trams with a position in Norway that day were running in Trondheim, not Oslo. And Ruter, which is behind all public transport in Oslo and former Akershus, did not report a single vehicle of any kind.
Then we asked the other question, about expected times at Jernbanetorget, the busiest hub in the country. The answer came immediately: line 2 to Ellingsrudåsen 20:09:32, line 4 to Bergkrystallen 20:11:19, line 3 to Kolsås 20:13, all marked as real time — not the timetable, but updated estimates.
Ruter knows perfectly well when the metro is coming. It just does not share where it is.
Why it is like this
Sending positions requires every vehicle to have equipment that reports coordinates, and the company to choose to publish that stream openly. The first already exists in practice — the metro has to know where the trains are to estimate arrival times at all. It is the second that is missing. The real-time times are shared openly; the positions are kept internal.
This is not a uniquely Norwegian phenomenon. Many European cities share arrival times without sharing positions. But it leaves a noticeable gap in Norway, since the Oslo area accounts for a large share of all public transport in the country.
What it would take
Ruter would have to start publishing vehicle positions to Entur, in the same way that AtB in Trondheim, Skyss in Bergen and a number of others do today. No map can get around that. Data that is not shared cannot be shown.
There is one partial way around it: calculating the position. We know the route the metro follows, and we know the real-time times at each station. From that, a symbol could be placed between two stations according to how long is left until the next one. That would give a picture of traffic in Oslo, but with an important difference: the position would then be an estimate, not a measurement. If the train stops in the tunnel, the symbol keeps gliding anyway. Such points would have to be clearly marked as estimated, or the map would be saying something it does not know.
What you see in Kartradar today
In the Oslo area, the map shows what actually exists: trains, airport buses, Vy's regional buses, ships in the fjord, planes over the city, traffic cameras and road incidents. The metro, trams and Ruter's city buses are missing, and will remain missing until Ruter shares its positions.
Outside Oslo the picture is completely different. Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Tromsø and large parts of the rest of the country have buses with real-time positions, and they are shown on the map with their route and remaining stops.