An open-source implementation of the OGC API – Moving Features Standard, built on top of MobilityDB.
MobilityDB is developed by the Computer & Decision Engineering Department of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) under the direction of Prof. Esteban Zimányi. ULB is an OGC Associate Member and member of the OGC Moving Feature Standard Working Group (MF-SWG).
More information about MobilityDB and the broader MEOS ecosystem can be found at:
- MobilityDB website — https://mobilitydb.com
- MEOS / libmeos.org — https://libmeos.org/ (the canonical C library underlying MobilityDB and MobilityDuck; MobilityAPI is one of its bindings)
- OGC API – Moving Features Standard — https://docs.ogc.org/is/22-003r3/22-003r3.html
MobilityAPI is a Python API server that exposes MEOS-stored mobility data through the OGC API – Moving Features standard. It provides REST endpoints (GET / POST / PUT / DELETE) over collections of moving features, suitable for HTTP-driven clients that don't speak SQL or the PostgreSQL wire protocol — browser applications, mobile clients, microservices, ETL pipelines.
The reference implementation runs on top of MobilityDB and consumes PyMEOS for the temporal-data conversion layer.
This project is under active development. Existing endpoints implement the core OGC API – Moving Features Standard; coverage of the standard is being progressively extended. See open issues for the current roadmap and discussions for design conversations.
- HTTP endpoints implementing the OGC API – Moving Features Standard: GET / POST / PUT / DELETE on collections, items, temporal geometries, and temporal properties.
- Built on PyMEOS for seamless interaction with MobilityDB temporal types.
- Validation of MovingFeaturesJSON payloads on insert.
- Test suite ingesting real-world AIS (Automatic Identification System) ship-trajectory data.
- Linux (Ubuntu recommended)
- Python 3.10 or later
- PostgreSQL with the MobilityDB extension installed
pip install -r requirements.txtchmod +x run.sh
./run.shThe server listens on localhost:8080 by default. Connection parameters live in config.json.
./run.sh --with-testsThe test runner ingests an AIS dataset before running the integration tests:
- ~23 minutes on first run if the JSON data file is not yet cached.
- ~21 seconds on subsequent runs.
If you need the AIS dataset, download aisdk_2024-08-07.zip from the Danish Maritime Authority feed into the data/ folder. Manual GET request examples are in demo.txt.
Send HTTP requests to the API using any HTTP client. As an example, the ais.sql script will create ships and ship2 tables containing ships data — change the CSV path in the script to point at your downloaded dataset.
MobilityAPI is the HTTP / OGC layer of the MEOS ecosystem. The other layers are:
- MEOS (canonical C library) — the underlying type system and computations.
- MobilityDB and MobilityDuck — peer SQL layers (PostgreSQL extension and DuckDB extension respectively) that expose MEOS as first-class database types.
- Language bindings — PyMEOS, JMEOS, meos-rs, GoMEOS, MEOS.NET, MEOS.js.
A longer overview is available on libmeos.org.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, test instructions, code style, and PR conventions. Issues and pull requests are welcome.
MobilityAPI builds on the foundation laid by pg_mfserv, an OGC API – Moving Features prototype authored at ULB in early 2024. The pg_mfserv initial implementation provided the Python-server skeleton, the OGC endpoint shape, and the PyMEOS-based MobilityDB integration pattern that MobilityAPI extends with a structured resource layout, comprehensive test coverage, and OGC-conformant request/response handling.
pg_mfserv is preserved in archived form at MobilityDB/pg_mfserv for historical reference and scholarly attribution; active development continues in this repository.
Contributors to the lineage, in chronological order:
- Maxime Schoemans (@mschoema) — pg_mfserv founding author (initial commit, OGC-API endpoint design).
- Victor Morabito (@MrMaxime1er) — pg_mfserv main developer (column-discovery, request handling, exception handling, route refactors — March 2024).
- Sirine Meraoui (@sirimeraoui) — current MobilityAPI maintainer (structured resource layout, test infrastructure, OGC conformance, documentation).
See AUTHORS.md for the complete contributor list.
MobilityAPI is released under The PostgreSQL License. If you use MobilityAPI in academic or technical work, please cite it using the metadata in CITATION.cff.