⚡ Implementation of the VDV 300 IBIS Wagenbus protocol for Arduino and Arduino-core based devices 💡
This open-source project aims to be an Arduino library that maintains communication with various public transport equipment, such as screens, displays, announcement devices or ticket printers. The term IBIS is german and stands for "Integriertes BordInformationsSystem" (eng.: "integrated board information system"). It is defined by the VDV and it's definition as well as it's extensions are nowadays available for reading on the VDV's knowhow page.
IBIS was designed back in 1992, but it is still widely used to this day, in old and new installations.
To it's core, IBIS is just a plain-standard RS232/TTL serial signal, communicating with a baud rate of 1200, 7 data bits, equal parity and 2 stop bits (1200 7E2). The difference to a standard serial signal lies in the voltage levels. While a TTL signal operates between 0V and 3.3V, IBIS is inverted and amplified to a 24V level. Driving a higher voltage makes the data transmission more robust in harsh environments like trains and buses, and also allows to run longer data lines.
IBIS is bidirectional, meaning that devices and both send and receive data to/from the bus. Usually, the IBIS controller in a vehicle is located near the driver's seat and receives input from the driver or over the air, generates IBIS data and sends it to every piece of equipment installed. Those devices can then decide whether they want to react to the sent data, or not.
IBIS speaks telegrams. All of those telegrams are defined in the VDV 300 document, page 41 following. Each of those telegrams has a consecutive number (e.g. 001, also often refered to as DS001) and a specific coding which defines the structure of the telegram's payload.
Due to the higher voltage levels (24V), connecting an IBIS device directly to a microcontroller is NOT possible. At the very least, you'll need a strong transistor that is triggered from the Arduino and switches a 24V power supply to the IBIS port.
💡 Together with this library, I've created an open-source IBIS controller utilizing an ESP8266 (Wemos D1). You can build the controller yourself, and then use this library to interface with your IBIS devices.
Once you've built the hardware side of things, the IBIS communication can be established with only a few lines of code:
#include <Arduino.h>
#include <ArduinoIBIS.h>
int txPin = 12;
int rxPin = 13;
ArduinoIBIS::Port ibis;
void setup()
{
ibis.Begin(txPin, rxPin);
}
void loop()
{
ibis.DS003c("Hello World!");
delay(3000);
ibis.DS003c("I'm ArduinoIBIS!");
delay(3000);
ibis.DS003c("Nice to meet you!");
delay(3000);
}This example begins the IBIS communication on the given transmit and receive pins (all pins supported by ESPSoftwareSerial are supported here), and then periodically sends the DS003c telegram to the connected display.
See it in action here:
VID!
This library wouldn't've been possible without the efforts of the following projects and people. Thanks to:
- plerup/ESPSoftwareSerial, which is used as the serial communication library
- CatoLynx, who helped me debugging my hardware and software since day one (I've also taken his awesome pyFis protocol as a reference)
- various public transport companies who provided me with tech throughout the years
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2025 Jonathan Verbeek
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.