Demise of Traveline website

[AY1975]

Apparently the Traveline website, or at least the regional versions of it (South East, South West, East Anglia and East Midlands), is to close down later this month having existed for about 20 years. Not sure if this also applies to the national version (www.traveline.info), though.

When I looked on the Traveline East Midlands site this afternoon there was a note saying that the decision had been taken because the site was rather dated now and there were no funds available to develop it with new facilities or enhancements to use the latest software developments. It was originally planned to close the site a year ago and then at the end of March. It also said the Bus Services Act 2017 placed the onus on bus operators to provide timetable information via their websites.

That note seems to have disappeared now, though. Maybe the word has got around and caused a massive outcry so they are reconsidering their decision? I think it would be a major retrograde step to close the site, as it would make it more difficult to obtain timetable information particularly for parts of the country with which you weren't familiar.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's basically all in Google Maps - maintaining it is a waste of money.

 

[njtruscott]

Where do you think Google gets it’s information from? A large proportion if not all comes from the Traveline National Data Set compiled weekly.

 

[PeterC]

It's basically all in Google Maps - maintaining it is a waste of money.

No filters on Google maps, tested the same journey on both. Traveline gave me an itinary that I could use with my ENCTS card, Google only gave me rail.

 

[Non Multi]

It's basically all in Google Maps - maintaining it is a waste of money.

Google maps from my own experience is pretty poor. It's good for a chuckle though. Traveline don't push you to use Uber either.

 

[JonathanH]

It's basically all in Google Maps - maintaining it is a waste of money.

Traveline remained the best place to find all timetables for one location in one place.

the site was rather dated now and there were no funds available to develop it with new facilities or enhancements

That is a terrible reason to get rid of it. It is familiar to users. Why does it need to have new facilities or enhancements if it currently works well.

 

[markymark2000]

Traveline as a whole is outdated. Even the national site isn't great.

I think the main issue is the way the data is created and saved. It means that route groups don't stay together which makes the timetables half useless to begin with. We are in a time where suffixes routes are becoming more and more common as operators try to serve as many areas as possible while keeping the 'core' (Look at First Doncaster, 'core' route numbers but then suffixes to show the route is branching off the corridor). Only showing 1 timetable means only half the trips are shown or in some cases, only 1 way around for circular routes.

The second issue is that in my opinion it isn't very user friendly. You search for your area and that isn't good enough, it wants to pin point you. We are in 2020, it's not hard to recognise town names. You then find your route, click through to it and it shows you every stop or timing points. Arrivas old site has this down to a T allowing you to expand between timing points rather than all or nothing approach. The timetable page also has too much buffer are around the actual times so on a full page, you only get 7 rows of timing points and you have to scroll for the rest.

Thirdly, traveline doesn't do unique links, it all UI based so you can't share timetables with people.

I also find that transfers aren't looked at from the perspective of where is most user friendly but instead focus more on what works for the journey planner. I put in a journey from Frodsham to Murdishaw and it said use the X30 and change at Halton Hospital onto the 500. Why change at Halton Hospital when Halton Lea is 1 stop earlier, both buses serve there but it's an actual bus station and interchange point rather than a random bus stop. It also quite often says 'walk less than a minute' which implies you are walking to a different area but when you look more in depth, you are walking between stops at the bus station. You aren't going out of the building.

Another point I would make is that as with most journey planners (except the company specific ones), there is no care in the world about making you use more bus operators which will always cost you more money. It may tell you to use a Stagecoach 10A to Queens Square but an Arriva 47 to Southport. That is no good as unless you have Merseytravel tickets (which it doesn't tell you to purchase), you can't make that journey cheaply. You can however use a Stagecoach 10A and the X2 or an Arriva 10A and the 47. Both of these are doable much cheaper than the equivalent walk up fares if you paid the driver on the bus for the journey which Traveline proposes.
A second example to this is from Grimshaw Lane (Middleton) to Shudehill, it gives 3 options. Of which 2 include using Stagecoach to Middleton Interchange and then changing onto a GNW or Diamond bus. Who on earth is doing that journey when the 112 runs every 20 minutes, direct and cheaper than using 2 companies.

Finally, and most important of all, not all times are upto date. It relies on companies or councils inputting the right data which can sometimes be wrong (whether that be missing out trips, stops or whole routes). Right now for example, the database hasn't been updated to show the Runcorn changes despite them being known about a good few weeks back. Currently there is a middleman which slows down the process. I hope with OpenData this is sorted as the council/PTe (Middleman) becomes irrelevant as bus operators automatically upload their data. No more relying on paper copies to the council who then has to manually input everything onto their system.

I think that until journey planners are sorted to make more realistic journey plans, I will stick to planning my own journey using operator maps and timetables and BusTimes.org to help me see about connection points.

 

[borage]

The message that appeared on http://travelinesoutheast.org.uk (I assume if it will reappear nearer to the shutdown date):

This website is closing

For over 20 years, this website has provided impartial travel advice using timetables compiled by all of the local transport authorities (County Councils and Unitary Authorities) in the region. The Bus Services Act of 2017 means that, by the end of 2020. it will be the bus operators’ responsibility to make available timetable, fares and real-time location data. The Government expects “the market” (bus operators and internet information providers) to use the latest technological developments to give travel planning information to the travelling public. Our website is rather dated now, and without funds to develop it with new facilities, and without enhancements to use the latest software developments, the decision has been taken to close it down. The closure was initially due to take place a year ago, and then at the end of March 2020. The rapidly changing data resulting from the Covid-19 outbreak provided a further extension. This website’s last day of operation will be Wednesday 23rd September, when our software contracts and hosting arrangements come to an end. Once our journey planner is taken off-line, this page will offer a number of alternative journey planning websites.

We will continue to provide data to the Traveline National Dataset as the transition to operators’ data takes place.

Thank you to the many thousands of you that have found our website useful over the last 20 years.

 

[David Goddard]

Very sad indeed. I find the Traveline Southeast site in particular very easy to use, and the detail given down to showing all stops on a route, and maps, is invaluable.

No other sites out there seem to have details of all operators, for all modes.
Details of service changes do often appear on Traveline before they go live on an operator's site, and the readability of their timetables is often clearer than the operator ones (particularly the style Stagecoach seem to be using at the moment)

Traveline is especially useful if you do not know an area or who the operators are, as you can just drop in your start and finish points and all options appear.

 

[Jordan Adam]

I'm not sure if it's the case across the board but i always found it frustrating that you had to download a timetable to actually view it.

Out of all the sites i find Bustimes.org the most convenient to use especially since it has live vehicle tracking, it's only downside is the lack of journey planner.

 

[PG]

I'm getting a distinct feeling of déjà vu, if they move the closure date back by a week it'd be exactly 6 years after the closure of (the superior IMHO) Transport Direct if anyone remembers them?...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Where do you think Google gets it’s information from? A large proportion if not all comes from the Traveline National Data Set compiled weekly.

The dataset, yes. Not the website. There is a need for the former, there isn't a need for the latter.

For those saying Google Maps doesn't do timetables, there's bustimes.org for that which is better than anything Traveline ever did. OK, it's not Government run, but does that matter? It is in my experience reliable. I find the Google Maps planner itself really rather good to be honest.

 

[Tetchytyke]

the superior IMHO) Transport Direct

Transport Direct came up with some hilarious suggestions, including walking about 200yds to the nearest Metro station from my job in Sunderland. They didn't take into account the whacking great river in between, so a 200yds walk was, in reality, about 2 miles.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It's basically all in Google Maps - maintaining it is a waste of money.

Yes, it's perfectly fine if the only national source of bus information is a website run by a car manufacturer. No conflict of interest there at all.

 

[Robertj21a]

Yes, it's perfectly fine if the only national source of bus information is a website run by a car manufacturer. No conflict of interest there at all.

?? car manufacturer

Is it the only national source?

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Google, through its Waymo subsidiary, has spent billions of dollars on developing self-driving cars. It's not at all unlikely that a future iteration of Google Maps will recommend its own products (perhaps such as an autonomous carpool operation) over third parties' - they have a lot of form in doing that.

 

[Robertj21a]

Google, through its Waymo subsidiary, has spent billions of dollars on developing self-driving cars. It's not at all unlikely that a future iteration of Google Maps will recommend its own products (perhaps such as an autonomous carpool operation) over third parties' - they have a lot of form in doing that.

So you believe that Google should be defined as a car manufacturer ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, it's perfectly fine if the only national source of bus information is a website run by a car manufacturer. No conflict of interest there at all.

Google's primary business is advertising and the amassing of data in order to achieve that. Not making cars. This works by providing very convenient, useful end user services which incorporate those things. They may have investments in making cars (and taxi services) but those are minor parts of the business.

These other aspects are no more prominent in the app than a walking or bicycle route.

And you're hardly going to go "I know, I'll buy a car" when you're searching a route to use on the bus later on today!

 

[Ianno87]

These other aspects are no more prominent in the app than a walking or bicycle route.

I do like that feature - it doesn't assume "well, of course you're going by car aren't you?"

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Google's primary business is advertising and the amassing of data in order to achieve that. Not making cars. This works by providing very convenient, useful end user services which incorporate those things. They may have investments in making cars (and taxi services) but those are minor parts of the business.

These other aspects are no more prominent in the app than a walking or bicycle route.

And you're hardly going to go "I know, I'll buy a car" when you're searching a route to use on the bus later on today!

Google has created a $2bn+ subsidiary to make self-driving cars. Google also owns a carpooling service. Google has a track record of favouring its own services in search results.

If you think that, when you ask for a route from A to B, it's going to present buses on an equitable basis with its own autonomous carpooling service, then I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[radamfi]

Aren't buses supposed to be in competition with each other? So an information website paid for by the government covering multiple operators doesn't make sense.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Google has created a $2bn+ subsidiary to make self-driving cars. Google also owns a carpooling service. Google has a track record of favouring its own services in search results.

If you think that, when you ask for a route from A to B, it's going to present buses on an equitable basis with its own autonomous carpooling service, then I have a bridge to sell you.

The fact is that it does.

Aren't buses supposed to be in competition with each other? So an information website paid for by the government covering multiple operators doesn't make sense.

Genuine on street competition occurs on low single-figure numbers of routes across the UK, and is completely non-existent in most towns/cities. For most journeys, only one bus company is applicable.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Google doesn't have an autonomous carpooling service right now, so I'm not quite sure why you think it presents it on an equitable basis with buses...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Google doesn't have an autonomous carpooling service right now, so I'm not quite sure why you think it presents it on an equitable basis with buses...

It does have Uberpool, or has that been suspended in the UK?

 

[radamfi]

Genuine on street competition occurs on low single-figure numbers of routes across the UK, and is completely non-existent in most towns/cities. For most journeys, only one bus company is applicable.

That may be so, but the principle is that buses are run on a free market basis so in theory competition is always possible. So should the government be giving free advertising to an incumbent?

 

[Bletchleyite]

That may be so, but the principle is that buses are run on a free market basis so in theory competition is always possible. So should the government be giving free advertising to an incumbent?

As they advertise all operators equally I see no problem. If you register a route, it goes on there.

 

[radamfi]

As they advertise all operators equally I see no problem. If you register a route, it goes on there.

Surely they should be at least be paying for the advertising? It's a business, not a public service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Surely they should be at least be paying for the advertising? It's a business, not a public service.

There is a fee for registering a bus route.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It does have Uberpool, or has that been suspended in the UK?

It's not owned by Google and it's not autonomous. As far as Google's concerned, it's just a third party service little different from a Stagecoach bus.

The point is that, in n years' time, Google is going to have - in some areas - its own autonomous carpooling service. When Google has a new service to promote, they promote the hell out of it on their search engine, especially when the market is as competitive as autonomous vehicles will be (with Uber, Apple, and all the incumbents all fighting to become the winner), and especially when they've already sunk vast sums of money into it. Witness how Chrome came from nowhere to become the market-leading browser.

So when you search for a journey from Oxford to Swindon, of course FutureGoogle is going to promote "hey, you can pick up one of our autonomous cars in five minutes, you should get that. Oh, and it's 50% off for the next n months". It's how they roll. The S6 and the train service will be relegated below and presented in a less appealing fashion.

 

[MedwayValiant]

If the argument is that it is not the job of the state to make bus timetables available, well OK, that is an argument. It's not an argument that I really agree with, but the state does not have infinite funds. (OK, it sort of does, but let's not go there right now.)

Is it in fact the job of operators to make timetables available? Yes it is, but not all of them do it. It has been widely noted that Arriva's new website is horrible to use and also desperately inaccurate, and there are still some smaller operators who just don't have one. Do we seriously expect Bloggs of Bloxwich to be told that he will have his O-licence revoked if he doesn't create a website showing the timetable for his one bus service? If he is told that he's likely to walk away, but if he isn't then the timetable for his service will become impossible to discover.

The Bustimes website has been mentioned, and at present it does seem to be more up to date than Traveline is. But who runs it has always been a bit of a mystery, and doesn't some of its information come from Traveline data which will no longer be forthcoming?

The Fat Bus Bloke hasn't covered this particular matter yet. We all have a fairly good idea of what he's going to say when he does, and I won't be the only person who sometimes wishes he'd change the record. The only problem is, he might be right ...