DfT pulls the plug on Transport Direct

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

From Passenger Transport

Transport Direct is switched off but transport campaigners argue that private sector alternatives don^t offer a fully comprehensive solution

The Department for Transport this week switched off Transport Direct, the government^s pioneering online journey planning service, just over 10 years after its controversial launch.

A nationwide journey planning website was first conceived by then deputy prime minister John Prescott in 1999 and its eventual launch in 2004 was widely derided as a white elephant and an example of Whitehall waste.

Since then, it has served more than 160 million travel information requests, as well as helping spectators plan their routes to the London 2012 Olympic Games, but in recent years the site has become largely superfluous with the government working  with transport operators to make timetable data freely available to web developers.

As a result, a number of journey planning websites have emerged, offering similar services to that of Transport Direct with the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) saying that these sites, such as Google Transit and the route planners offered by the AA and RAC, will take on the site^s role.

The department says that despite the closure, it will also continue to ^take an active interest in journey planning^. ^The department will also assist others in the provision of comprehensive, accurate travel information services,^ it added.

However, the demise of Transport Direct has attracted criticism. Stephen Morris, the deputy chief executive of Bus Users UK^▸ (United Kingdom), described the journey planner as ^absolutely brilliant^ and said that it has been invaluable to the travelling public over the last decade. ^We^ll be lost without it: literally,^ he added.

Meanwhile, Martin Abrams, transport campaigner at the Campaign for Better Transport, warned that the closure of the site will leave a substantial gap in public transport information provision at a time when it felt that the government should be supporting transport companies to open up their data.

He added: ^As the DfT^s own strategy emphasises, the technology to give passengers up to date information that enables them to make efficient and sustainable transport choices is readily available ^ what we need is a commitment from the transport industry to share the information itself.^

CBT^‡(resolve) said that the decision to close Transport Direct is in stark contrast to the DfT^s Door to Door strategy which was published last year, in which enabling data sharing and providing more comprehensive sources of travel information was a key aim, with Transport Direct the main platform to deliver this to passengers.

As a result, the campaign group has called on the government to support a comprehensive, high quality replacement for Transport Direct, and deliver on its promise to work with information owners to remove restrictions on commercial use of data so that it can be more readily shared.

^There are great examples of travel information apps for specific cities and specific modes of transport ^ but people will only be able to make properly informed comparisons and choices when they can access integrated information that gets them right from home to destination,^ added Abrams.

The switch-off also brought a blunt response from John Prescott. ^What the DfT should have done is turn it into an app and promote it,^ he said. ^Instead of giving you solutions, this is just Google-it government.^

This website has far better mapping than Traveline too....

[Rhydgaled]

Are the maps still available anywhere? I never really looked at Transport Direct, just assumed it was a similar thing to Traveline.

I find Traveline to be rather awkward to use and think it is a real shame that the mixing deck journey planners (East Coast, Chiltern and First Great Western, I think), which have a much-better interface in my opinion, do not show many bus services. This despite the mixing deck sites having some 'stations', such as Cardigan (CAI I think), which it cannot provide any journeys for as valid inputs.

Now that the rail timetable data is available to developer I wonder if Traveline's bus data is also. Then somebody could, in theroy, create a site with the features of OpenTrainTimes/RealTimeTrains, bus data from Traveline and a mixing-deck-style interface. Sadly the chances of that happening are probably rather slim, as it would presumably be rather a big project for a web developer to undertake without pay, and since there would be no source of revenue from the site I cannot see anyone being willing to pay to develop it.

[Surrey 455]

Traveline South East version has improved over the last few years. It now covers the whole of Great Britain (although the home page seems to contradict itself in the top right and bottom right panels) and finally has an Android app. After many years of London only apps to choose from, it was a welcome relief.

However I do find that you have to be very careful when inputting your start and destination. It automatically assumes that you're travelling from / to the centre of each town so you have to type the word "rail" or "station" at the end if necessary. I find that very irritating having to go back and amend your search. It would be better if there was an option on the first page.

[ChrisB]

Rail often doesn't work for me....you have to use "railway"....