OBB journey planner

[Mojo]

Can anyone advise me what exactly is the purpose of the OBB [Austrian Railways] journey planner?

A few months ago I was in Vienna at the Airport and wanting to go to Bratislava. Rather than take the coach I fancied a more interesting route and one suggested by the OBB journey planner was to get the Vienna S-Bahn train S7 to Wolfsthal and then a local bus onto Bratislava. When I got to the station however there was no such train at the time recommended but posters advising of long term engineering works with bus replacement beyond Fischamend.

Fast forward to this week, I am in Slovenia, and the Slovenian railways advise to use the OBB journey planner for international journeys. So I type in my origin and destination and it comes up with various itineraries but in the further details it mentions the line is closed and links to a PDF for replacement bus timetables, but the actual journey planner returns times based upon the normal timetable. If I select the same train from further down the line, it doesn’t come up with this message but again returns the normal timetabled times despite the train not running.

 

[nwales58]

OeBB web site planner currently shows the S7 replacement buses.

Why blame OeBB for Slovenia not updating MERITS with engineering work? All international planners will show the wrong times unless Slovenia changes the data. At least OeBB have a link to the SJ's temporary timetable PDF.

What is the point of Trainline or RailEurope as they will sell you a ticket for the train that is not running, following this line of thinking?

 

[rvdborgt]

Fast forward to this week, I am in Slovenia, and the Slovenian railways advise to use the OBB journey planner for international journeys. So I type in my origin and destination and it comes up with various itineraries but in the further details it mentions the line is closed and links to a PDF for replacement bus timetables, but the actual journey planner returns times based upon the normal timetable.

This sounds like an emergency measure from ÖBB to give passengers at least some information, when Slovenian railways couldn't be bothered to send updated timetables to MERITS in time.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

A few months ago I was in Vienna at the Airport and wanting to go to Bratislava. Rather than take the coach I fancied a more interesting route and one suggested by the OBB journey planner was to get the Vienna S-Bahn train S7 to Wolfsthal and then a local bus onto Bratislava. When I got to the station however there was no such train at the time recommended but posters advising of long term engineering works with bus replacement beyond Fischamend.

Looks like the S7 route to Wolfsthal returns to normal on 2 September.
Reaching Bratislava from Vienna is not helped by the closure of the route via Marchegg until December for electrification across the border (replacement bus from Marchegg).
Slovaklines appear to run 2 express buses an hour to Bratislava from Vienna airport for about €11, one of which goes via hlavna stanica taking 50 minutes.

Bus departures and online ticket I SlovakLines.sk

Slovak Lines bus schedule ✔ Bratislava ✈ Schwechat ➔ Vienna ✔ regional connections in Slovakia ✔ Lowcost and Comfy Travel ✔ Air Conditioning ✔ Wi-Fi

online.slovaklines.sk

 

[dutchflyer]

I still very well remember the very first lesson we got (ca 2000 or so) for working with computers ourselves:
you can only get out what someone has put in before. Or what many a USAer says: GiGO: garbage IN-Grb Out.
This simple lesson still explains many a question that gets posted here.
BTW-OeBB is by far not the only one to do that: DB, the germans, also only put in a note for shorter term BAU (works) and/or SEV-bus for part of the trip.
MERITS is (for those not knowing all the fine details of how railways cooperate still nowadays): a system for eurp. railway timings exchange.
Yesterday eve there was an item about that on the main German TV-news journal: DB had to process more as 2 million changes alone this year into the basic timetables and lacks the staff to accomplish all that.

 

[Mojo]

OeBB web site planner currently shows the S7 replacement buses.

It didn’t at the time of my journey in early July although I see it does now.

Why blame OeBB for Slovenia not updating MERITS with engineering work? All international planners will show the wrong times unless Slovenia changes the data. At least OeBB have a link to the SJ's temporary timetable PDF.

I’m not sure what Merits is, but it is just a bit strange that despite them knowing that the line is closed and the timetable is changed, it still displays the [incorrect] times. It’s even worse if you wanted to catch the train further down the line on the section not affected by engineering works, as you don’t get any messages whatsoever, just times for trains that don’t exist.

I’ve only had to use the OBB website twice to plan a journey and on both occasions it has provided information that is wrong. I think the explanation of GIGO is accurate in this case from the replies, it seems that it is supposed to reflect the new times but fails to do so. I wish I had rented a car…

 

[43096]

I’m not sure what Merits is

From the UIC website…

MERITS [1] (Multiple East-West Railways Integrated Timetable Storage) is a database, owned by UIC, containing the integrated timetable [2]data of many European countries, comprising a few hundred railway undertakings [3] (RUs), which are published four times a week.