Train information now in real time for journey planners

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Those frustrating times spent standing on a railway station platform watching as your "delayed" train suddenly disappears from the departure board without warning may be coming to a rather welcome end.

By 2015 the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s National Rail Enquiries (NRE^‡(resolve)) service intends to provide an "intelligent" data feed of real-time rail information to departure boards around the country as well as powering its own smartphone apps and website.

NRE has spent 13 years developing the system, now named Darwin in homage to its extended evolution (it is also less of a mouthful than the original title, Real Time Train Information).

Darwin is a computer program that uses algorithms and logic to blend a load of data, including timetable information, real-time updates on signalling and speed restrictions, and "insider knowledge" such as extra time factored in between stations on some routes.

It is an intensive programme to run. Darwin, along with NRE's other systems, currently occupies two data centres in Yorkshire, at Doncaster and Knottingley, although they are due to be merged this year. It already powers the service's website and rail journey planner app, downloaded by nearly 3m smartphone users.

"Darwin gives us a picture of how things should be running versus how they actually are running," NRE head of online services Jason Webb told the BBC. "We don't believe anyone else has a real-time journey planner."

According to Mr Webb, current station screens often rely on a complex combination of 66 different feeds, including locally gathered data that has to be input manually by station staff. To complicate things further, the boards are managed geographically by separate tech suppliers including Thales and Atos, and timetable information is provided by the various rail operators.

Many stations cannot see how late a train is until it physically arrives in the area, Mr Webb said, giving Darwin's national overview an obvious advantage. "I can never say never, but it certainly will improve screen information," he said.

One of Darwin's key feeds - the Train Describer System, used by signal operators to monitor trains at track level - is freely available to all from Network Rail. Using the train describer data has made Darwin a lot more reliable, says chief executive Chris Scoggins.

By comparing it with historic data about individual services, the train describer data enables Darwin's forecasts to be performance-checked in real time, Mr Scoggins explained.


The app has been downloaded nearly three million times

However, third-party developers wishing to use Darwin will have to pay, and the advertising-free model of the smartphone app costs ^4.99 to download.

"It is a commercial model," said Mr Webb. "There is a cost in developing and running something like Darwin," he added, although he was coy about specific figures.

The app has received mixed, but overall fairly positive, reviews. It currently has an average of nearly 4 stars on the Google Play site, where Android users download apps, and tech review website Pocket-Lint named it "app of the day" last year. It "performed well" but the price tag is "exorbitant", said reviewer Chris Hall.

Macworld described the iPhone/iPad version as "awkward to use" and "relatively slow", critiquing the design.

"The way we approach any design, we try to be as customer-centric as we can," said Mr Webb. "We also look at the environment where people will be using the app - you want information quickly so you want it to be as light as possible. On the website you have more time to browse, so you might want a wider set of information."

Mr Webb also said that a daily satisfaction survey runs on the app, and 80% of respondents have said they would recommend it. As for the price, he said he felt it was "fairly commonplace" for ad-free versions of apps to have a price tag, and that it was a matter of personal opinion whether ^4.99 was too high.

One thing is for certain, though: Darwin is in demand. Starting this month, Toshiba UK will include a standard desktop tile linking to the National Rail Enquiries journey planner on all its Windows 8 devices, and the next step for Darwin is to incorporate GPS data as it becomes more available.

Mr Scoggins has unabashed praise for the system's potential. "There is, to my knowledge, no other service anywhere in the world that can provide a full, multi-leg, journey planning capability based on an ever changing real-time set of schedules," he boasted.

[BerkshireBugsy]

Thanks for posting CfN. As for the app price being "too expensive" then obviously that is subjective.

In my opinion the price is fair - when I am commuting on a daily basis it is invaluable to me and the lack of an equivalent app on Windows Phone 8 (at the time I was looking) was a major factor in me not ditching Android.

I would like to have a facility whereby I could find out how promptly my service will arrive at my disembarkation point once I hav boarded it but as far as I know ths isn't possible with the current version (please feel free to prove m wrong on this!)

[Brucey]

I find the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) article rather biased towards telling us the app is pricey, forgetting that there is actually a free version.  As far as I can tell, it is exactly the same but contains some (IMO^▸ (in my opinion) discrete) adverts.  Hardly a huge price to pay.

[ChrisB]

If a service is running late, it does gove amended arr tumes at following stations. Seems to be aware of running time vs TT TIME, so once on move again, delays diminish slowly till later stations showing right time again

[JayMac]

Again please and maybe in English. 

[BerkshireBugsy]

If a service is running late, it does gove amended arr tumes at following stations. Seems to be aware of running time vs TT TIME, so once on move again, delays diminish slowly till later stations showing right time again

Thanks for your answer but I suspect I didn't phrase the question well so let me help myself by giving an example.

Lets assume that I am waiting at reading for a service to Cardiff. The app shows the train is due to arrive at reading 30 minutes late. My memory may be wrong but once the services has passed it's original scheduled departure time it will disappear from the app as a reading departure. So there the only way to then know when it would be due into Cardiff in this example would veto check departures from Newport and as long as the departure time from there hasn't passed I should be able to get the info I won't

Regards Dave

[ChrisB]

Once the train has departed, navigate to your destination station and chrck your train in the arrivals tab. You can then follow your train all through your journey...

[BerkshireBugsy]

Once the train has departed, navigate to your destination station and chrck your train in the arrivals tab. You can then follow your train all through your journey...

Thank you - because I normally use the app through widgets it's very rare I see the full home menu and had forgotten about the arrivals option

[IndustryInsider]

Any improvement in delay information is welcomed, though I am sure there will still be many inaccurate predications as there are so many variables that no amount of logic and algorithms will be able to predict!

[phile]

When you see "Delayed" on a CIS^▸ (Customer Information System), passengers would like to be told whether 10 minutes or 2 hours.   Various incidents cause delays of varying lenghts.
Another problem is other trains disappearing from CIS if they fail to appear.   This normally applies to starting trains which are late for some reason and nobody has "told" the system that it is expected to be starting late.  Regualr reason would be late inward.

[bobm]

When you see "Delayed" on a CIS^▸ (Customer Information System), passengers would like to be told whether 10 minutes or 2 hours.   Various incidents cause delays of varying lenghts.
Another problem is other trains disappearing from CIS if they fail to appear.   This normally applies to starting trains which are late for some reason and nobody has "told" the system that it is expected to be starting late.  Regualr reason would be late inward.

I think the "Delayed" message rather than an estimated time comes up when the train fails to reach the next reporting point within 10 minutes of the time it is due (or estaimated to be due if it was running late).  The system therefore assumes the train is stationary and until it moves it cannot estimate when it will arrive.  At that point it needs manual intervention - but even a human may not be able to give an accurate estimate at that instant.  The train may have failed, be held up because of an emergency line closure in front of it or a raft of other reasons.

[ChrisB]

This is correct.

Thecproblem could still be ongoing - fatality for example - and until clearance is given, no one can input an update. Hence its simply 'delayed' until it starts to move again...whether 10, 20 or 30+ minutes later

[BerkshireBugsy]

This is correct.

Thecproblem could still be ongoing - fatality for example - and until clearance is given, no one can input an update. Hence its simply 'delayed' until it starts to move again...whether 10, 20 or 30+ minutes later

When waiting for the 0634 from reading to gatwick to arrive at p4/5/6 from the depot the status sometimes shows delayed even if it arrives and departs on time. I'm not privy to the workings of the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) system but I guess it must be taking into account the service has to one from the depot and down the slip to the north downs line before returning back up to the platform.