PureTrack Traffic API

PureTrack provides a simple API to allow your application to use PureTrack live tracking data. Things to note:

A PureTrack API Key is required for your application. Contact Us to obtain a key.
Users must be a PureTrack Pro subscriber to access PureTrack data via third party applications.

Authentication Overview

PureTrack uses a simple API token system to authenticate your users. Here's an overview how it works:

You present a username/password field for your users to login to their PureTrack account.
Call the /api/login request with your app key, username and password.
This returns an API Token, and confirms if they are a PureTrack Pro user or not. The tokens do not expire unless a user manually removes it from their account. So generally login is only required once.
Use the API token on all future requests.

Note use the following header on all requests to ensure JSON is returned.

Accept: application/json

API Endpoints

POST https://puretrack.io/api/login

Login the user and returns an access token to use for future requests, and indicates if the user is currently a PureTrack Pro subscriber or not.

Required Parameters:

key - Your application API key, Contact Us to obtain a key.
email - the user's email.
password - the user's password.

Example Response:


{"access_token":"26|QDB332hx1mI5vgaqbaX8BtzYpeGx0Y2pZqdoQXeeL387d28a","pro":true}

GET https://puretrack.io/api/logout

Logout the user.

Required Parameters:

none

Example Response:


200 and Some HTML that it shouldn't be outputting...

POST https://puretrack.io/api/traffic

Fetch PureTrack live traffic data. Only available to PureTrack Pro Users.

Requires Bearer authentication with token provide by /api/login.

Required Parameters (POST or GET parameters fine):

lat1: lat of bounding box, decimal
long1: long of bounding box, decimal
lat2: lat of bounding box, decimal
long2; long of bounding box, decimal

Optional Parameters

o: List of type IDs to return, comma separated. e.g. o=63,1,2,27 returns all gliders and tow planes. A full list of types can be found at https://puretrack.io/types.json. Defaults to all types.
t: Max age in minutes of points to return. Defaults to 5 minutes. Up to 24 hours. Warning high values may return a lot of data if the bounding box is large. Limited to 5 minutes if bounding box is too large.
s: a list of PureTrack map item keys to always try and include in the response. e.g. s=Y-ZK-GOP,Y-ZK-CNC will always try and include the last known locations for aircraft ZK-GOP and ZK-CNC.
i: Boolean 1 or 0. Isolate to the items listed with s or not. Defaults to 0.

Notes:

When the bounding box size is too large, t value is lowered to 5 minutes, and data for the whole planet is returned.
Bounding box used is expanded slightly by a factor of 1.2 to include aircraft around the edges of the requested bounding box.

Example Response:


{
	"lat_distance": 76153,
	"long_distance": 182758,
	"lat1": "-37.49503",
	"long1": "176.54678",
	"lat2": "-38.06575",
	"long2": "174.82046",
	"data": [
		"T1713592586,L-37.78174,G174.88159,A4685,P1006.7,C338,S144.05,V-13.31,O56,DC828EA,U12,EZK-MZE,g43,mANZ118M,t4739.4,KY-ZK-MZE",
		"T1713592582,L-37.79929,G175.37943,A1058,P1006.7,C43,S74.61,V20.28,O56,DC82336,U12,EZK-MVJ,g53,mANZ823M,t1112.5,KY-ZK-MVJ",
		"T1713592574,L-37.58374,G175.9984,A1497,P1007.25,C350,S81.53,V0,O56,DC81958,U12,EZK-NED,mANZ258L,t1546.8,KY-ZK-NED"
	],
	"time": 32.78803825378418,
	"success": true,
	"http_code": 200
}

Parameters

lat_distance, long_distance: distance of bounding box, for debugging
lat1, long1, lat2, long2: bounding box corners used, for debugging
data: the data points returned. Details below.
time: time taken to process the request in ms
success: boolean, true or false.
http_code: the http_code returned

Data Rows Specification

The array of data is a list of comma separated lines. Each item is identified by it's first letter/digit, and is case sensitive. This format aims to be more effecient than JSON. Most values are not guaranteed to exist except the timestamp, lat/long and key.

'T': Timestamp Epoch Unix Timestamp

'L': lat

'G': long

'K': key - PureTrack key, to uniquely identify this object in PureTrack. If matching an aircraft, it is prefixed with Y- plus rego. If matches a PureTrack target, prefixed wtih X- or Z-. For unknown items, prefixed with source type ID number and tracker_uid e.g. a FLARM target will be 0-ABC123.

'A': alt_gps - meters, altitude returned by most devices. ADSB calculated from local pressure. See also 't' for standard pressure altitude from ADSB.

'P': pressure - the current latest 6 hour pressure for nearest location, used to calibrate ADSB altitude.

'C': course in degrees 0-360

'S': speed in m/s

'V': v_speed in m/s

'O': object_type see list of types https://puretrack.io/types.json

'Z': timezone - not used at the moment (Timestamp returned is Unixtime).

'D': tracker_uid - The ID of the original tracker. In the case of FLARM FlarmID or ADSB ICAO hex code.

'H': stealth - If this item is stealth or not from flarm.

'Q': no_tracking - If this item is stealth or not from flarm

'I': signal_quality

'R': receiver_name

'U': source_type_id - ID of source of this point. List below of source IDs

'J': target_id - The PureTrack target ID. A 'target' matches an item to a map icon/label and other user configured options.

'B': label - Label, either returned from the tracking service, or added from what the user has configured via the target

'N': name - actual name of a pilot if provided

'E': rego - If an aircraft, the full rego e.g. ZK-GOP

'M': model - Aircraft model.

's': speed_calc - not used

'd': dist_calc - not used

'v': v_speed_calc - not used

'f': flying - not used

'x': ignore - not used

'g': gl - Ground level at this point

'i': tracker_id - Internal puretrack ID

'e': comp - not used?

'c': colour - Colour selected by user to use on map. Generated randomly if not provided.

'a': aircraft_id

'j': target_key

'k': inreach_id

'l': spot_id

'h': accuracy_horizontal

'z': accuracy_vertical

'u': username - Username provided by some services e.g. Skylines, Flymaster etc

'm': callsign - not used

'n': comp_name - Contest name

'b': comp_class - Name of the contest class

'q': comp_class_id - ID of the contest class

't': alt_standard - standard pressure altitude in meters

'r': thermal_climb_rate - m/s. calculated thermal climb rate from start of climb to current location.

'p': phone - user's phone number

'F': ffvl_key - if the target has an FFVL key

'!': random - If the item is a randomly generated ID from FLARM

Source IDs

0 = flarm
1 = spot
2 = particle
3 = overland
4 = spotnz
5 = inreachnz
6 = btraced
7 = api
8 = mt600-l-gnz
9 = inreach
10 = igc
11 = pi
12 = adsb
13 = igcdroid
14 = navigator
16 = puretrack
17 = teltonika
18 = celltracker
19 = mt600
20 = mt600-l
21 = api
22 = fr24
23 = xcontest
24 = skylines
25 = flymaster
26 = livegliding