Call for bus website like National Rail Enquiries

[whole diary]

[Surrey 455]

This appeared in the print edition of Fridays Metro. I'm struggling to find any similar articles online from a mainstream website though.

[grahame]

This appeared in the print edition of Fridays Metro. I'm struggling to find any similar articles online from a mainstream website though.

Thanks for that - I'll make the text findable here (via FreeOCR) not that we're a mainstream website ... yet ...

Call for bus website like National Rail Enquiries

A WEBSITE and app giving bus passengers real-time travel information could be available under plans to force all firms to share data.

The Department for Transport [DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)] wants bus firms to provide information on routes, fares and timetables. developing a site equivalent to National Rail Enquiries. Bus data sharing has mostly been limited to bigger cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, where the Citymapper app helps passengers find the best routes.

The DfT may also call for audio and visual prompts on buses to assist the disabled and elderly.

The Bus Services Act requires data to be made available; this is perhaps about implementation.  The Act was rushed through in the lead up to the last election, and although the act says "what", "how" has be be defined through executive orders.

[LiskeardRich]

Go Ahead’s group app is pretty good, I can see the location of my bus, and I can see its fleet number. It appears customised for each of its OpCos.

[WelshBluebird]

Go Ahead’s group app is pretty good, I can see the location of my bus, and I can see its fleet number. It appears customised for each of its OpCos.

The main two problems current systems like that in use at the moment have are:

• There is nothing that covers nationwide as far as I am aware. There are some apps (like the "UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Bus Checker" one I use) that are pretty much nationwide, but in some areas they just use timetable data as there is no real time data available.
• Even where it does work, it can be unreliable and misleading. Especially when a service just doesn't run, quite often it'll show as the timetabled time, then just disappear when that time passes, no hint of it running late or being cancelled.

Of course, even having the option in some areas is a better situation than in the past (where you just had to wait and hope), but I certainly agree moving to an NRE^‡(resolve) equivalent would be a very good thing for bus users!

[SandTEngineer]

I use Google Maps Route Planner and it seems quite acurate (well, for all the journeys so far).