Documentation
Station arrivals & PIDS
View live MTR train arrivals and countdowns right from pinned station cards on your map.
In version 1.5.3, you can view live station arrival boards (PIDS) directly on your map, complete with destination names, lines, platform numbers, and live countdown timers.
How to use arrival boards
- Open Xaero’s World Map or JourneyMap.
- Click on any station icon to pin its station card. You’ll see the station name, connected lines, and platforms.
- Click Expand on the card to open the live arrival board. It connects directly to MTR’s native PIDS prediction service to stream upcoming trains.
- If a station has lots of departures, scroll your mouse wheel inside the board to see more rows (scrolling inside the panel won’t zoom the map). Long station names can be hovered to read the full text.
- Click Collapse, close your map, or disconnect to close the board and stop the live data stream.
Live arrival boards require matching 1.6.0 builds on both client and server. The predictions come directly from MTR/TSC’s native PIDS engine — MTR Map Overlay doesn’t run its own timetable or fake countdowns. If a train doesn’t have an arrival estimate yet, it shows a dash (-) rather than a misleading zero.
PIDS visual styles
You can choose between two visual themes for your arrival boards:
| Style | Command | Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| British (default) | /mtrmap config pidsStyle british | Classic rail departure board: black background with bright amber text. |
| European | /mtrmap config pidsStyle european | Modern airport/transit display: dark blue-grey header, crisp white text, and amber countdowns. |
Run /mtrmap config pidsStyle without arguments to check which theme you’re currently using. Your choice saves automatically and persists across restarts.
The Navigate button
Each station card includes a Navigate button. This button is designed for third-party route planning and navigation mods. If a provider can handle the selected station, clicking Navigate opens it. If multiple providers are available for that station, you’ll get a quick chooser menu. In 1.6.0, availability is checked again on click.
If no compatible provider is available for that station, the button remains greyed out. Want to build an integration for your mod? Check out the Navigation API.