Venice FAQ: high water, waterbuses and open data

A free interactive map of Venice and its lagoon built only from open data: live waterbuses, tide, trip planning and dozens of data layers. It is an independent, unofficial project: every value states its source, licence and whether it is measured, forecast, simulated from the timetable or still to be checked.

The tide page shows the level measured at Punta della Salute, the City of Venice reference station, with the official forecast of high and low tides. VOD re-reads the City Tide Centre data every minute.

The City Tide Centre calls the tide “sustained” from +80 cm, “very sustained” from +110 cm and “exceptional” from +140 cm above the Punta della Salute tide datum. Indicatively, about 12.2% of the pedestrian ground in the historic centre is under water at +110 cm, 35.5% at +120 cm and 89.6% at +140 cm.

When a tide of +110 cm or more is forecast, sirens sound across the city: one tone for +110 cm, then one more tone for every 10 cm, up to four tones for +140 cm and above.

The mobile barriers at the three lagoon inlets are normally raised for forecasts from about +110 cm; each decision is taken by the operations room of the Provveditorato, so VOD shows the threshold as an indication, not as a promise.

When ACTV publishes it, VOD shows the GPS position of each waterbus (GTFS-Realtime feed) with its delay against the timetable, checked against the value ACTV declares. When the feed is missing, boats are positioned from the official timetable and clearly labelled as simulated.

The ordinary 75-minute ACTV ticket costs €9.50 and is valid on waterbuses, buses, trams and the People Mover, but not to or from the airport (the airport ticket costs €10.00). Prices published by AVM/ACTV, checked by VOD on 16 October 2026.

By water with Alilaguna (€18.00 single ticket to Venice), by ACTV bus 5 or ATVO 35 Express (€12.00) to Piazzale Roma, or by water taxi. The airport page shows the next options computed from the timetables.

Yes, within each source's licence (often CC BY or ODbL), shown on every layer. VOD also offers a REST API, downloads and a read-only MCP server for AI assistants.

No cookies and no account. Only anonymous, aggregated usage statistics are collected to understand which features are used.

No: VOD works in the phone browser. It can be added to the home screen like an app.