viafrei-mcp

ViaFrei

Germany's traffic, trains, charging and roads — in your AI assistant.

Ask in plain words. Get the live answer, with its source.

viafrei.de · Connect your assistant · For developers · For businesses · All tools · API reference

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claude mcp add --transport http viafrei https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp

Free. No account, no API key, no sign-up. One line and your assistant knows whether the A8 is jammed, whether your train, bus or tram is late, where the nearest fast charger is (and whether it is free, where the operator publishes that), which hydrogen station takes a lorry, whether the lift at your station works and whether the road ahead is forecast to freeze — from official German open data, live, with the source named in every answer.

Beta. ViaFrei is being stabilised: sources are still being added, and answers and coverage can change. The answers are written by an AI assistant from our data, and AI can make mistakes, so check anything important (a closure, a departure, a price) against the source each answer names.

New in 2.1.8: company offices and what stands at an address. find_poi now finds a company's offices by name, even when the name is spelled a little differently, keeps motoring results out of a question that is not about driving, and says "more than 50" when a search stopped at its reach instead of giving a count that is not complete. find_address lists the companies, shops and buildings OpenStreetMap maps at an address. A lane narrowing is no longer called a jam: a police message counts as a jam only when it still describes queuing traffic, so a months-long lane closure for a building site is answered as roadworks.

New in 2.1: hydrogen stations. A new tool, find_hydrogen_station, lists H2 Mobility's stations near a place, nearest first, with their pumps (700 bar for cars, 350 bar for lorries and buses) and opening hours where published. The publisher gives no availability and no price, and the answer says so. More roads in the city: check_road_status now reads the works and building sites of Bremen, the traffic messages of Kassel, Leipzig and Rüsselsheim am Main, and the state of Schleswig-Holstein's large bridges (a wind warning, a closure); Niedersachsen's works and closures off the motorways are answered by road. find_parking adds Kassel's car parks with live free spaces, and find_charging_station reads 23 more charge-point operators directly from their own publications. Every source is listed, with what it feeds and what we hold back, in SOURCES.md; the CHANGELOG has the whole list.

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🧳 What you can ask

You don't need to know any tool names. Ask the way you'd ask a friend who happens to have every German traffic feed open. German or English; the answer comes back in the language you asked in.

when you're…	ask
🌅 about to commute	Wann fährt die nächste Bahn ab Köln Neumarkt? · Fahren Busse und Bahnen in Bayern gerade pünktlich? · When does the next train leave Hamburg Hbf?
🚗 about to drive	Gibt es Stau auf der A8? · Are there roadworks on the A7 next week? · Is the A1 closed anywhere? · Welche Baustellen gibt es in Bremen? · Ist die Fehmarnsundbrücke wegen Wind gesperrt?
🚧 stuck in traffic	How much time is the jam on the A3 between Frankfurt and Würzburg costing right now? · Is traffic backed up on the Cologne motorway ring — A1, A3 or A4? · Ist der Elbtunnel auf der A7 heute Nacht gesperrt?
⚡ driving electric or on hydrogen	Where can I charge with Type 2 near Leipzig? · Wo gibt es einen Schnelllader mit 150 kW bei Nürnberg? · Where can I fill up a hydrogen lorry near Hamburg?
🅿️ parking	Is the P+R at Fröttmaning usually full in the morning? · Wie viele Plätze sind in den Kasseler Parkhäusern frei? · Find a rest area with lorry parking on the A9
⛽ filling up	Where is diesel cheapest near Kassel? · Welche Tankstellen gibt es in Weimar?
♿ travelling step-free	Funktioniert der Aufzug am Bahnhof Köln Messe/Deutz?
🌦️ watching the weather	Gibt es eine Unwetterwarnung für Freiburg? · Is the road near Garmisch going to be icy this morning?
📍 looking for a place	What is the address of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg? · Welche Apotheken gibt es in Fulda? · My satnav shows 50.1109, 8.6821 — what address is that?
🇩🇪 new to German roads	Do I need an emission sticker for Stuttgart? · Is there a speed limit on the Autobahn?
⏳ waiting for news	Tell me as soon as the closure on the A7 is lifted. · Sag mir Bescheid, wenn in Köln ein Viertel oder mehr der Bus- und Bahnfahrten verspätet ist. · Warn me when a DWD severe-weather warning comes into force for Cologne.

What the answers cover, honestly. Live traffic is the motorways. Closures and roadworks also cover federal roads, Land roads in Niedersachsen, Sachsen, Thüringen and Baden-Württemberg, the city streets of Hamburg and Bremen, the traffic reports some Länder and cities publish (Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Hannover, Kassel, Leipzig, Rüsselsheim am Main), and the state of Schleswig-Holstein's large bridges; other city streets are not covered. Departures cover every German stop from the timetable; a live delay appears where a realtime feed carries that trip, and otherwise the answer says the time is the plan. Live parking and charging occupancy exist only where the operator publishes them, and an answer never reads "no data" as free. Fuel prices cover the stations we watch, not all of Germany. Hydrogen stations are H2 Mobility's published list: pumps and opening hours, but no availability, price or working state, so check before you drive. Places and addresses come from OpenStreetMap, so what is not mapped there cannot be found, and ratings are not part of it. A watch lives in the conversation that opened it: the server keeps every change there, and your assistant shows it when you ask, or on its own if your client supports MCP notifications. Nothing is sent by e-mail or SMS. Up to 10 watches per conversation, each for up to 24 hours (3 by default), and a road is watched as a whole, not one section of it.

💬 Real answers

These came back from the production server at https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp. They are not mock-ups. The first three were asked of server 2.1.8 on 2026-10-13, around 22:40 Berlin time, the next three of server 2.1.5 the same afternoon, around 16:20, and the others of server 2.0.10 that morning, around 06:41; they answer in the same shape at 2.1.8. Each one shows the first lines of what the tool returned, and the source line as it was sent, shortened where marked.

"SAP" in Walldorf:
1. SAP SE — company, Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, 49.29442, 8.63995
2. SAP WDF01 — commercial building, Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, 49.29368, 8.64166
3. SAP WDF02 — office building, Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 14, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, 49.29461, 8.64274
4. SAP WDF03 — office building, Robert-Bosch-Straße 34, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, 49.29296, 8.64373
5. SAP WDF04 — office building, Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 15a, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, 49.29421, 8.64443
…

23 matches, 1–10 shown — the next with cursor="10".

OpenStreetMap data as of 2026-10-06

As of 22:44 · Source: OSM-Standortdaten: © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, ODbL 1.0 (…)

A company's buildings, each with its address and point, from OpenStreetMap, which is also why the answer carries the ODbL line. The answer says how many matched and how to fetch the next page. Edited: five of ten entries and the source URIs cut to ….

"Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7, Walldorf" — 2 mapped objects at this address:
1. Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg — 49.29448, 8.63670
   (2 OpenStreetMap objects of this address, up to 145 m apart, shown as one point: outline, usually the building (OSM way; point = its centre))
2. Hasso-Plattner-Ring 7, 69190 Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg — 49.29438, 8.63978 — outline, usually the building (OSM way; point = its centre) — 224 m from point 1
The 2 points lie up to 224 m apart — further than 150 m, so not one door mapped twice; probably several buildings under this house number.

Mapped at this address in OpenStreetMap:
- SAP WDF21 — office building
- SAP WDF19 — office building
- SAP SE — company

As of 22:44 · Source: OSM-Standortdaten: © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, ODbL 1.0 (…)

The address, the buildings mapped under it (and how far apart they are, so "two buildings" is not mistaken for "one door mapped twice"), and the companies and buildings OpenStreetMap places there. Edited: the note on another Walldorf, the data date and the source URIs cut.

Berlin (11000000): 1 jam report, 247 closures, 267 restrictions, 10 planned roadworks sites — window until 2026-10-16.
• Slow traffic (Stockender Verkehr): Provider text (German): "A100 Stadtring Berlin, Wilmersdorf Richtung Neukölln, zwischen Gradestraße und Tunnel Ortsteil Britz, 0,8 km stockender Verkehr" (since 12:35; 6.6 km away)
• Roadworks (Baustelle): Provider text (German): "Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (Mitte) — Richtung Brandenburger Tor in Höhe Spandauer Straße Baustellenfläche für eine Hochbaustelle, Fahrbahn auf einen verschwenkten…" (2026-03-26–2027-09-30)
• Roadworks (Baustelle): Provider text (German): "Gertraudenstraße (Mitte) — in beiden Richtungen zwischen Spittelmarkt und Fischerinsel Brückenprüfung, Fahrbahn auf zwei Fahrstreifen verengt, Gewichtsbeschrän…" (2023-04-27–2028-03-31)
• Closure (Sperrung): Provider text (German): "Rosenthaler Straße (Mitte) — in beiden Richtungen zwischen Hackescher Markt und Sophienstraße Gleisbauarbeiten, Vollsperrung für Kfz-Verkehr" (2026-09-18–2026-10-20)
…
Sources that answered: Autobahn GmbH, BASt (roadworks), VIZ.NRW / NMS, Senatsverwaltung Berlin (traffic messages).

As of 22:34 · Source: Verkehrsdaten: Autobahn GmbH des Bundes (…) · … · Verkehrsmeldungen Berlin: Senatsverwaltung für Mobilität, Verkehr, Klimaschutz und Umwelt Berlin via Mobilithek, Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0 (www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0), Daten verändert (…) · …

One jam, not dozens: a lane narrowed for a building site is roadworks, however the police message is filed, and the one queue on the A100 is the jam. Edited: six of ten entries, the radius notes, the other sources of the source line and its URIs omitted.

Hydrogen stations for trucks/buses near Hamburg (within 50 km), nearest first:
1. Hamburg - Schnackenburgallee — 5.5 km · Schnackenburgallee 12, 22525 Hamburg · 350 bar truck/bus, 700 bar car · opening hours: not published (unknown) · record last changed 2026-10-13 (today)
2. Hamburg - Flughafen — 7.9 km · Weg beim Jäger 193, 22335 Hamburg · 700 bar car, 350 bar truck/bus · opening hours: not published (unknown) · record last changed 2026-10-13 (today)
3. Hamburg - Großmoorbogen — 10.0 km · Großmoorbogen 1, 21079 Hamburg · 350 bar truck/bus, 700 bar car · opening hours: not published (unknown) · record last changed 2026-10-13 (today)
No live availability, price or operating status is published — check that the station is working before you drive.

As of 14:50 · Source: Wasserstofftankstellen: H2 Mobility Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG via Mobilithek, CC BY 4.0, bearbeitet (…) · Ortsdaten: © GeoNames (CC BY 4.0), bearbeitet (…)

Only the stations with a 350 bar pump for lorries and buses, because the question was about a lorry. It names what the publisher does not say, opening hours included, and never guesses that a station is working. Edited: the two source URIs cut to ….

Bremen: 4 jam reports, 151 closures, 119 restrictions, 8 planned roadworks sites — window until 2026-10-16.
• Slow traffic (Stockender Verkehr): Provider text (German): "A1 Osnabrück Richtung Bremen, zwischen Dreieck Stuhr und Bremen-Arsten, 4 km stockender Verkehr im Baustellenbereich" (since 12:46; +16 min per Autobahn GmbH; 6.2 km away)
• Traffic restriction (Verkehrseinschränkung) (Bremen): Provider text (German): "Einengung der Fahrbahn; Einengung des Geh-/Radweges; Halteverbot;" (2026-06-01–2026-10-31)
• Closure (Sperrung) (Bremen): Provider text (German): "Vollsperrung; Einengung des Geh-/Radweges; Halteverbot;" (2026-08-17–2026-10-16)
…
Sources that answered: Autobahn GmbH, BASt (roadworks), VIZ.NRW / NMS, Bremen traffic management centre (roadworks).

As of 16:14, unchanged since 13:15 · Source: Verkehrsdaten: Autobahn GmbH des Bundes (…) · … · Baustellen Bremen: Verkehrsmanagementzentrale Bremen via Mobilithek, Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0 (www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0), Daten verändert (…) · …

The motorway jam and the city's own building sites in one answer, each in its publisher's words and with its dates, and a line naming every source that answered. Edited: asked in English; a place key, seven of ten entries, the radius notes and three of five sources omitted.

Parking around Kassel (within 10 km), nearest first:
1. Galeria — Car park (Parkhaus), 0.2 km, 210 spaces, 102 free (as of 16:06)
2. Friedrichsplatz — Car park (Parkhaus), 0.2 km, 980 spaces, 579 free (as of 16:06)
3. Kurfürsten Galerie — Car park (Parkhaus), 0.3 km, 560 spaces, 456 free (as of 16:06)
…
As of 16:06 · Source: Parkhäuser Kassel: Stadt Kassel, Straßenverkehrs- und Tiefbauamt via Mobilithek, Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0 (www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0), Daten verändert (…) · Parkhaus-Belegung Kassel: Stadt Kassel, Straßenverkehrs- und Tiefbauamt via Mobilithek, … (…) · …
Where no "free" count is shown the operator publishes no occupancy — it does not mean the site is full.

The city's live counts, each with the time of its reading. Edited: asked in English; a place key, two car parks, the separate OpenStreetMap list and two of four sources omitted.

Abfahrten ab Köln Neumarkt — Fahrplan mit Echtzeit, 06:41 bis 07:01:
06:42 Tram 3 → Köln Dellbrück Thielenbruch, Gleis 14, pünktlich
06:43 Tram 7 → Benzelrath Frechen-Benzelrath, Gleis 12, Plan
06:44 Tram 16 → Bonn Bad Godesberg Stadthalle, Gleis 14, +1 Min. (voraussichtlich 06:45)
06:45 Bus 146 → Köln Lindenthal Deckstein, Steig 25, pünktlich
06:47 Tram 18 → Köln Buchheim Herler Str., Gleis 16, +1 Min. (voraussichtlich 06:48)
… und 23 weitere im Fenster.

Stand 06:41 · Quelle: Fahrplandaten: DELFI e.V., CC BY 4.0, bearbeitet (…) · … · Echtzeitdaten: DELFI e.V. via Mobilithek, CC BY-SA, bearbeitet (…)
Die Echtzeitangaben aus DELFI GTFS-RT und DELFI SIRI ET stehen unter CC BY-SA (Share-alike), …
Verspätungen und Ausfälle aus den DELFI-Echtzeitdaten, wo sie vorliegen; mit „Plan“ markierte Zeiten sind Fahrplanzeiten ohne Echtzeitangabe. …

Trams and buses with their live delay, from the same national realtime feeds as the trains. Where no live figure exists the row says Plan, never "on time". Edited: five of ten rows, the stop id line and two of three sources omitted.

7 of 62 reported facilities at Berlin Hauptbahnhof are out of service. Counted are the facilities DB reports for this station.
Escalator 1.UG - Tram Haltestelle 4: out of service
Lift Gleis 3/4 (C/D) - Gleis 11/12: out of service
Lift Gleis 5/6 (C/D) - Gleis 11/12: out of service
Lift Gleis 1/2 (C/D) - 1.UG - EG: in service
… and 54 more.

As of 06:41 · Source: Aufzüge und Fahrtreppen: Deutsche Bahn AG, DB API Marketplace, CC BY 4.0, bearbeitet (…) · …

Each lift and escalator, where it is and whether it works. For anyone with a wheelchair, a pram or a heavy suitcase, this decides whether a station is usable. Edited: four escalator rows omitted, and one source cut to ….

A7: 45 roadworks sites per BASt between 2026-10-13 and 2026-10-20: 44 current, 1 planned. 5 of them are in this answer — raise limit to 20 for the rest.
• Construction works (Baustelle): A7 (+15 more sections) — 1 of 2 lanes closed, hard shoulder closed, 80 km/h limit, phase 2026-06-23 until 2026-10-25 — 2023-03-23 until 2028-04-14 — Provider text (German): "A7 zw. Bad Brückenau-Volkers → Bad Brückenau/Wildflecken 1,602 km; Brückenneubau"
• Construction works (Baustelle): A7 (+3 more sections) — 1 of 3 lanes closed, 80 km/h limit — 2023-10-28 until 2026-12-31 — Provider text (German): "A7 zw. Hammelburg → Bad Kissingen/Oberthulba 1,007 km; Brückenneubau"
…
As of 06:17 · Source: Arbeitsstellen: Bundesanstalt für Straßen- und Verkehrswesen (BASt) via Mobilithek, CC BY 4.0, bearbeitet (…)
Planning data from BASt: road sections only, no coordinates and no live delay. For the situation right now, call check_autobahn_traffic.

Which junctions each site lies between, what is closed, and until when — and it says plainly that this is planning data, pointing to the live tool for now. Edited: the first and the last two of five sites omitted, and the "unchanged since" note cut from the stand line.

I know no filling station from our price data within 5 km of Weimar, … The nearest station with a diesel price is about 19.3 km away — radius_km 20 reaches it. … find_cheapest_fuel can ask the provider which ones are here — new areas one at a time and only a limited number per hour; its answer carries their prices, within about a minute.
More filling stations mapped by OpenStreetMap — we don't have a price for these stations yet:
1. Jet — 1.2 km
2. Star, Rießnerstraße 37, 99427 Weimar — 1.5 km
4. Shell, Rießnerstraße 14, 99427 Weimar — 1.5 km
…
As of 06:41 · Source: Tankstellenpreise: Tankerkönig.de — MTS-K, CC BY 4.0, bearbeitet (…) · OSM-Standortdaten: © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, ODbL 1.0 (…) · …
Hinweis zu den Kraftstoffpreisdaten (MTS-K): Diese Daten dürfen ausschließlich zum Zweck der Verbraucherinformation verwendet werden; …

Where we hold no price, the answer says so, offers the next step, and lists the OpenStreetMap stations nearby — never with an invented price. Where we do hold prices, each priced station is listed with its price per litre and its open state; this page shows none, because of the MTS-K condition. Edited: place keys and a second Weimar removed from the first line, two stations and one source omitted.

Parking around Fröttmaning (within 10 km), nearest first:
1. P+R Fröttmaning — Park and ride (P+R), 0.3 km, 1259 spaces, no live occupancy — forecast for now (weekdays 06–07): usually free (more than 75 % free) – forecast from past experience, as of 12/2024
2. P+R Kieferngarten — Park and ride (P+R), 1.1 km, 235 spaces, no live occupancy — forecast for now (weekdays 06–07): usually free (more than 75 % free) – forecast from past experience, as of 12/2024
Munich's P+R sites are, per the dataset, as a rule only for public-transport passengers („grundsätzlich nur den ÖPNV-Fahrgästen“).
…
As of 06:41 · Source: Datenquelle: dl-de/by-2-0: Landeshauptstadt München – opendata.muenchen.de (bearbeitet) (…) · …
Where no "free" count is shown the operator publishes no occupancy — it does not mean the site is full.

No live count exists here, so it says so and gives the city's own forecast for this weekday and hour, labelled as a forecast and dated. Edited: a place key, one P+R site, the separate OpenStreetMap list and four of five sources omitted.

Charging around Leipzig (within 10 km, Type 2), nearest first:
1. Parkhaus Neumarkt, Neumarkt 30, 04109 Leipzig (Parkhaus Neumarkt) — 0.2 km, Type 2, up to 22 kW, no status data, per charging point register
2. Motel One Leipzig Nikolaikirche, Schuhmachergäßchen 5, 04109 Leipzig (Wirelane GmbH) — 0.3 km, Type 2, up to 11 kW, no status data, per charging point register
…
Only a few operators publish live occupancy; "no status data" means unknown, not free.
Price per kWh: not published for any of these sites (in the data we hold).
Charging point register as of 2026-09-01 — chargers as reported by their operators to the Bundesnetzagentur, with no live occupancy and no warranty of accuracy or completeness.
…

It says what it does not know: "no status data" is unknown, never free, and where an operator publishes a price per kWh the answer shows it. Edited: a place key and the third site omitted, and the stand and source lines cut.

Description of 52.5163, 13.3777:
- Nearest address: Pariser Platz 1, 10117 Berlin (3 m)
- Settlement: Unter den Linden (0.7 km)
- Municipality: Berlin
- State (Land): Berlin
- Junction: Seestraße (4.2 km)

Address data as of 2026-10-06
As of 06:56 · Source: Ortsdaten: © GeoNames (CC BY 4.0), bearbeitet (…) · … · OSM-Standortdaten: © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, ODbL 1.0 (…)

That's the Brandenburg Gate. Edited: one of three sources cut to ….

One official notice for Garmisch-Partenkirchen, highest level 1 of 4:
1. Level 1 of 4 — Wetterwarnung (the DWD's own name; our translation: weather warning) — FROST
   Valid: until 2026-10-13 08:00 (since 2026-10-13 00:00)
   Official DWD wording, reproduced unaltered (German):
   „Amtliche WARNUNG vor FROST“
   For the drive: Expect ice and much longer braking distances; winter tyres are mandatory in these conditions (§ 2 (3a) StVO).

DWD road-surface forecast for the nearest road-weather stations (SWSMOS/METRo model forecast, run 05:00 — not a measurement and not an official warning):
- Station Farchant-Tunnel (open road, 5.3 km) — forecast 06:00: dry (Trocken), road surface 4.6 °C; no slippery class forecast until 2026-10-14 06:42.
…
Quelle: Deutscher Wetterdienst (…) · Quelle: Deutscher Wetterdienst. Datenquelle: BMVBS und Straßenbauverwaltungen der Länder (…) · …
The road-weather station data are unverified point measurements and do not reflect conditions on a road section; …

The official warning word for word, and beside it the forecast for the road surface itself, with what that forecast is not. Edited: the area line, the CAP fields, part of the DWD text, two stations and one source omitted.

On viafrei.de the same data is on the page: the home shows cards for one place, public transport first, then fuel, parking, roads, charging, weather and what is nearby, and German towns and cities have place pages under their full names, where each card row with its own point links to OpenStreetMap's map. Since 2.1 each station on the transit card has a line of its own: how many of its lifts and escalators run, each one out of service by name, the platforms the timetable marks step-free, and the car parks and P+R sites within 300 m. The punctuality share is the district's (Kreis) where a place lies in one; the weather card shows the nearest road-weather station's next six hours (air and road-surface temperature, rain or snow); the road card adds the city messages above; and the fuel card names the two nearest hydrogen stations within 25 km.

Why the source line matters. Every answer ends with one, and it is the licence speaking: show it to whoever reads the answer. Copy the line the server sends you, not the ones on this page, which are shortened. See Using the data you get back.

🔌 Connect in one minute

The product is a hosted MCP server. Point your client at it and the tools appear. There is nothing to install, no key to request and no quota to negotiate. Step-by-step guides for each assistant: viafrei.de/en/connect.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http viafrei https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp

Claude (desktop app and claude.ai), ChatGPT and other apps that take a connector URL — add a custom connector with this address (in Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector; in ChatGPT the connector settings need developer mode):

https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp

Cursor, and any client with an mcpServers file that takes a url, over HTTP:

{ "mcpServers": { "viafrei": { "url": "https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp" } } }

VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json, or MCP: Add Server from the command palette):

{ "servers": { "viafrei": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp" } } }

Clients that speak only stdio — for example Claude Desktop's config file (claude_desktop_config.json, opened from Settings → Developer → Edit Config). That is what this package is for:

{ "mcpServers": { "viafrei": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "viafrei"] } } }

Node 22 or newer. npx fetches the bridge when your client starts it. If the file already has an mcpServers block, add the "viafrei" entry inside it rather than pasting a second block.

An older client on HTTP+SSE is answered too, at https://mcp.viafrei.de/sse. The transport is deprecated in the specification, so prefer the address above when you can:

claude mcp add --transport sse viafrei https://mcp.viafrei.de/sse

Restart the client and ask one of the questions above.

Where to find ViaFrei

• npm — viafrei. This package: the stdio bridge, for the config line above. Its page shows the current version and this README.
• Smithery — smithery.ai/servers/viafrei/viafrei. Connect through Smithery's hosted connection, with no local install.
• Glama — glama.ai/mcp/servers/mavrovde/viafrei-mcp. The directory listing for this repository, with the tool list.
• Official MCP Registry — de.viafrei/mcp. The hosted endpoint, as MCP clients and directories that read the registry find it; server.json is the entry. It is republished with every release of this package, after the npm publish, and only when the live server reports the same version.
• For AI tools — viafrei.de/llms.txt and llms-full.txt: what ViaFrei is, how to connect, and every tool in one line each.

🧰 Everything it can do

22 tools, 9 prompts, 10 resources and 2 resource templates — server 2.1.12, snapshot of 2026-10-14. Each line is the server's own words; the full parameters are in API.md.

🚗 On the road

tool	what it answers
check_autobahn_traffic — Autobahn traffic	Jams, slow traffic, closures and roadworks in force this minute on up to 5 motorways, with delay/speed.
check_road_status — Road status and closures	Whether a motorway, B or Land road (NI, SN, TH, BW: pass the Land/town as place) is open, closed, restricted, now or coming days; by place, jams, city/Land messages, Hamburg traffic cameras.
find_roadworks_ahead — Planned roadworks	Returns roadworks PLANNED on one motorway, one Bundes-/Landesstraße in NI, SN, TH or BW, or Hamburg city streets by place, in a date window: section, restriction, dates.
find_parking — Parking nearby	Parking near a place, a coordinate or along one motorway: motorway lorry parks, car parks and P+R sites, with total spaces and, where published, free spaces now and the reading's age.

🚆 Public transport

tool	what it answers
get_train_departures — Train departures	Next trains from a German railway station: platform, delay, cancellations.
get_departures — Scheduled departures (bus, tram, train)	Scheduled departures from any German stop — bus, tram, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, train, ferry.
check_transit_disruption — Public-transport disruption in a region	How punctual public transport is now in one German region: the share of trips ever over 5 min late, trips with a cancelled stop, the trend, and the service alerts in force there (diversions, closed stops).
check_station_facilities — Station lifts and escalators	Report whether the lifts and escalators of a German railway station — or of a Köln Stadtbahn stop — are working now: each one, where it is, its state (in service / out of service / unknown) and the operator's explanation.

⚡ Charging and fuel

tool	what it answers
find_charging_station — EV charging nearby	Returns EV charging sites near a place or coordinate with operator, connector types, maximum power, price per kWh where published, and how many points are free right now where the operator publishes live status.
find_cheapest_fuel — Cheapest fuel nearby	Returns the cheapest stations for one fuel grade near a place or coordinate: price per litre, brand, address, distance, open state.
find_fuel_station — Find a filling station	Finds filling stations around a place or coordinate under any combination of filters — grade, brand, name, open now, open at a time you name, open 24 h — sorted by distance, price or name.
find_hydrogen_station — Hydrogen stations nearby	Returns hydrogen (H2) filling stations near a place or coordinate, nearest first, with operator, address, pumps (700 bar car, 350 bar truck/bus), opening hours where published and the age of the record.

📍 Places and addresses

tool	what it answers
find_place — Look up a place	Looks up a place name and returns every place that matches, each with its kind, official key (AGS/RS), population, English name and coordinate.
find_poi — Find a named place	Finds a business or landmark by name or kind — company, shop, clinic, hotel, hostel — with address, category and coordinate.
find_address — Look up a street address	Looks up a street address: its coordinate, and the named OpenStreetMap objects at it (company, shop, office) or that none are.
describe_location — Describe a coordinate	Turns a coordinate into words: the nearest address, settlement and motorway junction with their distances, and the Gemeinde, Kreis and Land the point lies in.
find_nearby — What is nearby	Overview of what is around a place or coordinate: nearby fuel stations, EV charging, parking, the nearest railway station and motorway junction, each with its distance.

🚲 Sharing

tool	what it answers
find_sharing — Shared bikes nearby	Returns rentable shared bikes near a place or coordinate: bike-sharing stations with bikes and free docks now, and free-floating bikes around, with distance and data age (nextbike incl. KVB Rad, MyRadl, VAG_Rad; Donkey Republic).

🌦️ Weather and rules

tool	what it answers
check_weather_warnings — Weather warnings and road-surface forecast	Returns the official DWD weather warnings in force for a place — storm, snow, ice, heavy rain, thunderstorm, heat — with Warnstufe 1–4, area, validity and the official text unaltered.
get_driving_rules — German driving rules	Returns the German road rules a visitor needs: low-emission zones (Umweltzone) and which Feinstaubplakette a city requires, speed limits (advisory 130), winter tyres, alcohol, the Sunday lorry ban, tolls (no car toll), Rettungsgasse, what must be in the car, and electric cars (E-Kennzeichen, ad-hoc payment, plugs).

🔔 Watches

tool	what it answers
watch_situation — Watch for a change	Opens a watch so THIS conversation is told when something changes: a road reopening, a stop running late, a weather warning, a charge point turning free.
stop_watch — Stop a watch	Ends a watch this conversation opened with watch_situation, so no further notifications arrive for it.

🧭 Prompts — ready-made briefings

Pick one in your client's prompt menu and fill in the blanks; it calls the right tools in the right order.

prompt	what it does
plan_departure — Trip briefing before departure — Reise-Briefing vor der Abfahrt	Briefs a drive that is about to start: the official weather warnings at both ends, whether each motorway is open, and the jams in force this minute, ending in one go/no-go sentence.
compare_travel_options — Drive or take the train? — Auto oder Bahn?	Weighs one trip by car against the same trip by rail: closures and live jams on the motorway side, the next departures and the region's punctuality on the rail side, as two paragraphs the traveller can compare.
prepare_car_trip — What you need before driving in Germany — Vorbereitung der Autofahrt	Collects what a driver must carry and know before driving in Germany and into one particular city: the low-emission-zone badge, speed limits, winter tyres, the alcohol limit, tolls, mandatory equipment and the rules for an electric car.
plan_fuel_stop — Refuel or charge on the way — Tank- oder Ladestopp unterwegs	Finds where this traveller fills up or charges on the way: the cheapest stations for one fuel grade around one place, or the charging points with the right connector and power, and the rest area beside them if they also need a break.
plan_commute — Plan today's commute by train — Pendelfahrt für heute planen	Plans one public-transport leg on the day itself: the next departures from the station with delays, platforms and cancellations, and whether the region's buses and trains are running normally at this hour.
plan_arrival_parking — Where to leave the car on arrival — Parken am Ziel	Finds where to leave the car at the end of the drive: the car park in town, the park-and-ride at the edge with the onward departures, or the rest area if the traveller is early.
find_a_place — Find out what a name refers to — Herausfinden, was ein Name meint	Resolves a bare name of unknown kind into a place, a named thing, or an address, trying each table in turn and stopping at the first that answers.
plan_local_errand — What is around this place? — Was ist hier in der Nähe?	Answers "what is around here" for one place: the nearest fuel, EV charging, parking, railway station and motorway junction in one glance, then — only if the traveller wants more than the nearest one — the depth tool for that one category.
explain_this_coordinate — Say where a coordinate is — Sagen, wo eine Koordinate liegt	Turns a bare lat/lon into a sentence a traveller understands: the nearest address, settlement and motorway junction with their distances, and the Gemeinde, Kreis and Land the point lies in.

📚 Resources — reference your assistant can read

resource	what it holds
viafrei://attribution — Data sources & attribution	Licence and attribution text for every data source ViaFrei uses.
viafrei://coverage — Coverage	Which feeds, places and vehicles ViaFrei can answer for right now — licence, cadence and freshness per feed, which large cities hold no fuel price yet, plus what is deliberately not covered.
viafrei://rules/driving-in-germany — Driving in Germany — the rules a visitor needs (DE/EN)	Curated, sourced and dated: low-emission zones, speed, winter tyres, alcohol, tolls, the Sunday lorry ban, equipment, emergencies and electric driving.
viafrei://rules/low-emission-zones — Low-emission zones (Umweltzonen) — city, zone, plaque, where to buy it (DE/EN)	Which German cities run a low-emission zone, which Feinstaubplakette they require and where to buy it.
viafrei://emergency — Emergency in Germany — 112, 110, rescue lane, breakdown, crash (DE/EN)	What to dial, how to form the Rettungsgasse, what to do in a breakdown or after a crash, and what the law requires you to carry.
viafrei://rules/electric-driving — Electric driving in Germany — E plate, charging, payment, plugs (DE/EN)	What an electric car needs in Germany: the E-Kennzeichen and why its privileges differ per city, the green plaque, the right to ad-hoc card payment, plug standards, how prices are shown, etiquette and what to do in an emergency.
viafrei://status/feeds — Feed status	Per feed: is it still arriving?
viafrei://watches — My watches	The watches THIS conversation has open, with what each one is watching and when it expires.
viafrei://gazetteer — Gazetteer coverage	What the place index (gazetteer_places) holds: rows and last load per source and kind, how many carry an English name, and the sixteen Länder it can name — the coverage behind find_place/find_poi/find_nearby's place answers.
viafrei://addresses — Address coverage	What the OSM-derived address table (osm_addresses) holds per Bundesland — the Länder and each one's extract date read from the rows, the row counts estimated from the planner's statistics and labelled so — plus the ODbL § 4.6 offer owed to anyone who receives an address-derived result.
viafrei://watch/{id} — One watch	One watch of this conversation: what is being watched, what it has reported, and the attribution of the data behind each report.
viafrei://place/{query} — A resolved place	One place, poi or address resolved the same way every tool resolves place — a point, a short list of candidates, or an honest no — so a name can be pinned once and reused as lat/lon.

The running server is the source of truth. This list and API.md are rendered from a dated snapshot of it, and CI fails if either drifts from that snapshot. Ask any MCP client for tools/list to see what is live this minute.

Worked use cases

Walkthroughs that chain several tools, each naming what comes back:

• 🛣️ Driving Munich to Berlin: several motorways in one call, roadworks ahead, a fuel or charging stop, and parking at the far end.
• 🚉 The commute that broke: departures, regional disruption, and a station lift that is out.
• 🔋 An EV on a long weekend: charging by connector and power, low-emission-zone rules, and what is around a stop.
• 🚚 Fleet and logistics briefings: a dispatcher's morning brief, and watches that report a change instead of being polled.
• 🗺️ Building a local guide agent: a vague place to coordinates and back, and what OpenStreetMap's licence asks of you.

How well it answers, measured: test rounds of up to nearly 3,000 questions in German and English against production, with every finding published.

🛠️ For developers

It's plain MCP over HTTP. You can call it without an SDK:

# 1. open a session
curl -si https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-06-18","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"me","version":"0"}}}' \
  | grep -i mcp-session-id

# 1b. tell the server you are ready — the MCP lifecycle requires it before any request
curl -s https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'mcp-session-id: <from step 1>' -H 'mcp-protocol-version: 2025-06-18' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"notifications/initialized"}'

# 2. ask a question (put the session id from step 1 in the header)
curl -s https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'mcp-session-id: <from step 1>' -H 'mcp-protocol-version: 2025-06-18' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"check_weather_warnings","arguments":{"place":"Freiburg im Breisgau","language":"en"}}}'

• One endpoint instead of a stack of integrations. SOURCES.md lists the more than 140 sources behind it, among them Autobahn GmbH, Deutsche Bahn, DWD, DELFI, VBB, the national access point Mobilithek, MobiData BW, the Bundesnetzagentur, dozens of charge-point operators, H2 Mobility, city open-data portals, BKG, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap and MTS-K. Each has its own format, release rhythm and licence, and they arrive here as one protocol.
• Results are written to be read aloud. A tool answers in sentences an assistant can pass on, says what it does not know ("no status data means unknown, not free"), and ends with the source line.
• Annotated honestly. Twenty of the twenty-two tools are read-only and idempotent (readOnlyHint, idempotentHint), so a client can call them without a confirmation prompt. The two watch tools are not, because opening or stopping a watch changes what the server will tell you later, and their annotations say so.
• Prompts and resources, not only tools. Nine ready-made briefings, and a reference shelf (driving rules, emission zones, emergency numbers, attribution) your assistant can read directly.
• Watches. watch_situation turns polling into a notification for as long as the session lives: a road closure appearing or clearing, a stop's departures running late, a region's late share reaching a threshold (a quarter by default), a DWD warning coming into force, a charge point turning free. Three hours by default, 24 at most, and at most 10 per session. What a watch has reported is readable at viafrei://watches and viafrei://watch/{id}, and a client that subscribes to that resource is told when it reports something new. It reaches no inbox and no phone.
• Machine-readable failures, in the bridge too: one line on stderr and a distinct exit code per cause (see below).

Bridge configuration

option	what it does
--url <url>	endpoint to relay to. Default https://mcp.viafrei.de/mcp. See the note below
--header "Name: value"	extra HTTP header on every request, repeatable. For an API key, when there is one
--timeout <ms>	per-request timeout, default 30000. The event stream is never timed out
--version, --help	print and exit

Many MCP clients can only pass an env block, not arguments, so every option has an environment variable too:

variable	same as
VIAFREI_MCP_URL	--url
VIAFREI_MCP_HEADER	--header. Separate several headers with a newline, which can never appear in a header name or value. That way nothing you might need to send is unrepresentable: a comma, a semicolon and a space all occur inside real header values
VIAFREI_MCP_TIMEOUT_MS	--timeout

A flag wins over the variable, and the variable wins over the built-in default. A --header of the same name replaces one from the variable; a --header of a different name is added alongside it.

There is no self-hosted ViaFrei. The server is a hosted service. --url is not a way to run your own: it exists for a proxy or gateway in front of the service, and for the stub server this repository's test suite starts.

When something is wrong

The bridge prints one line to stderr and exits with a code that says what happened. No stack traces:

viafrei: cannot reach https://example.invalid/mcp: host not found (DNS) (ENOTFOUND) - check your network connection; --url only if you relay through a proxy

The same text also goes back to the client as a JSON-RPC error, so an assistant can say what went wrong instead of going quiet.

exit	meaning
0	clean shutdown (the client closed stdin, or sent SIGINT/SIGTERM)
1	something else went wrong; the line says what
2	bad usage: a flag or a value the bridge does not accept
3	the endpoint could not be reached, stopped answering, or never answered in time
4	the endpoint answered and the bridge cannot continue: it refused (the line names the HTTP status), forgot the session, answered with something that is not MCP, or redirected to another origin
5	protocol version mismatch; the line names the version the server speaks

A slow call may be a retried call. A 429, 502, 503 or 504 is tried again once, after the delay the server asked for in Retry-After, or 250 ms when it asked for none. A connection that fails outright (reset, broken pipe, socket or connect timeout) is tried once more after 250 ms. Two cases are not retried, because waiting would be worse than answering: a 429 with no usable Retry-After, and any requested delay longer than your timeout. An event stream is never retried.

Your timeout bounds each request, not the whole call. Two attempts plus a delay can add up to about three times the timeout, and more if the endpoint redirects. If you need a hard ceiling, enforce it on your side.

An established session may wobble: a dropped event stream is a warning, and the bridge reconnects. It may not stay dead in silence. Several failures in a row with nothing succeeding in between end the process with the code above, so the client that started it finds out.

What the bridge does not do

• No tracking. No telemetry, no analytics, no usage counter, no update check.
• No stored files or credentials. It writes no file outside the OS temp directory. --header is passed through to the endpoint and is never persisted or logged.
• No cross-origin redirects. A redirect off the origin you pointed it at is refused with one line naming both ends, so a server cannot forward your API key somewhere you did not choose. Same-origin redirects are followed normally.

💼 For businesses

• The licence work is done, and it travels with the answer. Each result carries the attribution its sources require. Where a source attaches a condition, the result states it: share-alike is flagged, and the MTS-K purpose limit arrives as a sentence you are meant to show.
• Built for answering people. Live figures, sourced and dated, in the language of the question. Good for travel and mobility assistants, dispatchers' briefings, customer service and step-free station checks.
• Read the business page: viafrei.de/en/business. It covers six use cases and how to work with us.

⚖️ Using the data you get back

Every result carries an attribution line. Show it to the person reading the answer. The full register is at the resource viafrei://attribution, and SOURCES.md is the readable version: every publisher, what it covers, its licence, and the exact line to reproduce.

Two constraints matter more than the rest, because getting them wrong is a licence breach rather than a style problem:

• MTS-K fuel prices are consumer information only. Any other use is unlawful in any form, raw, reformatted or aggregated, and never for the fuel industry or its IT providers. On top of that we ask for no redistribution at all: answer the person who asked; do not build a product out of it. (This is also why this page shows no fuel price.)
• DELFI's realtime and disruption feeds are Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (its static timetable and stop directory are CC BY 4.0, and so is VBB's Berlin-Brandenburg feed). Share-alike travels with anything you derive from it: recompute it, reshape it, rearrange it or build a delay table out of it, and that is Adapted Material you must license under BY-SA (art. 1(a) names material "translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified"). Merely showing it beside another source's data is an aggregation and puts no obligation on the other source. The realtime feeds' catalogue records name no licence version, so do not rely on one for a derivative; SOURCES.md has the detail, and also covers the two share-alike databases under the ODbL (OpenStreetMap and one lorry-park operator).

See also NOTICE and LICENSE.

🗣️ Tell us when an answer is wrong

ViaFrei is live, free, and still growing. Some sources are thinner than they will be, and a tool can be slow or wrong. A tool that fails is something the server sees. A tool that answers confidently with the wrong thing is not. Use the A tool answered badly, or not at all issue template, saying what you asked and what came back. That report is the one thing we cannot get any other way.

The server itself

The MCP server is a hosted service, and its source is closed. It is not in this repository and is not published. What is public is the part meant to be: the tool names, descriptions, input schemas, result shapes and attribution lines, which is everything a client reads from tools/list. We say this plainly so nobody spends an evening looking for the server code.

Contributing · Security · Licence

• Contributing: yes, please. See CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. The bridge is small and self-contained, which makes it a good place for a first patch.
• Security: never open a public issue for a key, a token or anything that looks like one. SECURITY.md has the private reporting path.
• Licence: Apache-2.0 for this code. Data obtained through the server keeps its provider's licence; see NOTICE.

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