Real Time Departure Information on Rail Replacement Buses using TfL fleet

[hkstudent]

I have been to Barking last week and notice that the DL routes for District Line rail replacement do project on bus real-time departure board at bus stops near the railway station.
It proves that those TfL buses do have real-time departure data that can be sent to the centralised server.

Would it be possible for the same thing applies to rail replacement buses using TfL fleet, to have real-time departure information to be displayed on NR Journey Planner? It is quite common that buses can get delayed while passengers may not know the situation, particularly during rainy days.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

There ought to be real-time for all rail replacement buses - this might be better provided by a mobile phone app provided to all TOC contractors, given the variety of connections theoretically possible from most buses used, but maybe not many of the coaches. The app could also help them find the next station as well! A similar solution has been employed by SNCF for rail replacement around Paris, the tool does a lot more including scheduling, messaging - and navigation. I heard that Eurostar do something similar to get consistent real-time back to base from the networks they run over.

 

[JonathanH]

I have been to Barking last week and notice that the DL routes for District Line rail replacement do project on bus real-time departure board at bus stops near the railway station.
It proves that those TfL buses do have real-time departure data that can be sent to the centralised server.

It is a bit easier for TfL to ensure that the replacement buses for underground routes are added to the iBus system (which has been the case for some time) than it is for that information to interface with the NR journey planner.

Using this system to interface wouldn't work where a joint fleet is in operation.

 

[mmh]

I'd imagine this would be difficult to do. The rail system will be designed around where train number blah has passed on the track, which a bus never does. It would be hard to provide any estimate for a future stop other than however late it was at the previous stop. For a RRB, that could be 100 miles of travel to catch up. Does the caught up bus leave on time, and annoy the people who came late when they saw it was running late, or does it wait until the delayed time and annoy the people already on it and at future stops?

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

I'd imagine this would be difficult to do. The rail system will be designed around where train number blah has passed on the track, which a bus never does.

It's possible to input a delay manually, either through a TOC system or directly into Darwin, and I've seen this done - only once - for a replacement bus. There is also a Train Location and Movement Service feed which can take GPS locations from a vehicle as input (which might as well come from a bus) but I don't know if this feeds into Darwin. This feels like the way to do it, the problem isn't getting the location of a bus, it's matching that vehicle to the timetable and applying the predictions to the right service.

 

[700007]

I have been to Barking last week and notice that the DL routes for District Line rail replacement do project on bus real-time departure board at bus stops near the railway station.
It proves that those TfL buses do have real-time departure data that can be sent to the centralised server.

Would it be possible for the same thing applies to rail replacement buses using TfL fleet, to have real-time departure information to be displayed on NR Journey Planner? It is quite common that buses can get delayed while passengers may not know the situation, particularly during rainy days.

Long story short, no. Unless you can somehow integrate Darwin and iBus into one uniform system or able to communicate with each other, this won't be the case. The iBus system just sees it as a regular bus route and couldn't tell the difference if it was a local, limited stop or rail replacement bus service. Although, sometimes for whatever reason TfL does not add all the bus stops onto iBus either. On the District line replacement that you mentioned, service DL-7 at Barking towards Dagenham East stops at stop L but iBus believes it stops at a temporary stop roughly where the bus stand (there isn't one) is so you can't actually see the departures at stop L.

Even if you were to integrate this, usually only one operator (the contract holder, in this case Abellio or Sullivan Buses) is uploaded to iBus and so only their own vehicles can track. Any subcontractors, whether TfL or not, will not track and may wrongly assume the next bus is in 16 minutes when a subcontractor bus could be coming first in 8. Would be a fab idea though, I definitely agree but a lot of hurdles to overcome.

 

[Megafuss]

I have been to Barking last week and notice that the DL routes for District Line rail replacement do project on bus real-time departure board at bus stops near the railway station.
It proves that those TfL buses do have real-time departure data that can be sent to the centralised server.

Would it be possible for the same thing applies to rail replacement buses using TfL fleet, to have real-time departure information to be displayed on NR Journey Planner? It is quite common that buses can get delayed while passengers may not know the situation, particularly during rainy days.

With enough notice I think real time for buses could be done. It would be case of setting up a "bus service" and sending the accompanying data files to whoever handles real time data for TfL.

I am not sure if the the two systems could "talk" to each other though for this to be displayed for rail rather than bus.

 

[CBlue]

Probably not that feasable when operators running RRS in London range from Arriva / Go-Ahead et al, from various depots which previously have included places like Southend and Luton, to a small coach firm based all the way up in Runcorn!

Any benefit this system could bring seems to be outweighed by the complexity of getting it to work across different systems and companies - especially when operators are drafted in at short notice.

 

[Boo_]

Stagecoach use Green road phone app for tracking if a bus or coach does not have a tracker shared with stagecoach. when I did RR for TFL we used to have Ibus codes but most of the time it never worked. But I do know overground now works with Ibus codes

 

[FlippyFF]

From January 2021, if I've understood it correctly, all bus operators will have to provide real-time location information for registered bus services. Obviously this won't help emergency rail replacements but for planned replacements using buses (I'm not sure how it affects scheduled coach services) it could make this easier...

Simon

 

[Boo_]

From January 2021, if I've understood it correctly, all bus operators will have to provide real-time location information for registered bus services. Obviously this won't help emergency rail replacements but for planned replacements using buses (I'm not sure how it affects scheduled coach services) it could make this easier...

Simon

Rail Replacement is not registered it a closed service with pre-paid ticket holders' reason you can't take payment onboard. I do know ARR / Stagecoach / First has tracking systems but only in control room.

 

[TheLastMinute]

Where RRBs are using service buses, it could be possible. For example, I know that First Travel Solutions is able to track service buses within the First fleet.

However, the majority of RRBs outside of London are operated by coaches which are far harder to reliably track centrally. For each coach, there are estially three ways to track:

• Fit a hardwired tracker to each and every RRB vehicle - not feasible when there is a good chance vehicles can only do one or two RRB jobs a year.
• Provide mobile devices to each driver which are returned - a logistical nightmare for everyone and a high percentage would get lost/never be returned.
• Drivers using their own phones - while some drivers would be quite happy doing this, others will refuse on principle, won't be tech enough or not have a smart phone or just won't be bothered.

FTS did attempt to 100% of their RRBs tracked and even lent out phones to operators and asked other drivers to log into a Driver's App. From my observations, tracking coverage only ever got to about 50% to 60% of vehicles, not a great return for all the effort and expense.

TLM

 

[Boo_]

Where RRBs are using service buses, it could be possible. For example, I know that First Travel Solutions is able to track service buses within the First fleet.

However, the majority of RRBs outside of London are operated by coaches which are far harder to reliably track centrally. For each coach, there are estially three ways to track:

• Fit a hardwired tracker to each and every RRB vehicle - not feasible when there is a good chance vehicles can only do one or two RRB jobs a year.
• Provide mobile devices to each driver which are returned - a logistical nightmare for everyone and a high percentage would get lost/never be returned.
• Drivers using their own phones - while some drivers would be quite happy doing this, others will refuse on principle, won't be tech enough or not have a smart phone or just won't be bothered.

FTS did attempt to 100% of their RRBs tracked and even lent out phones to operators and asked other drivers to log into a Driver's App. From my observations, tracking coverage only ever got to about 50% to 60% of vehicles, not a great return for all the effort and expense.

TLM

I do know Stagecoach do track all Coaches and Buses as it part of their terms to have green road app used on all services if the bus coach does not have a tracker fitted that they can have shared with stagecoach. That what they told me at my training when I worked at Derby blockade few year ago.

Also, ARR uses a driver phone app and controllers all use a phone app linked for live updates FTS has a system like this also. I was on working on the first test with FTS that was on the Preston to Warrington block in 2013 but only Virgin services had it. I know Arriva has no tracking as I have worked in York control 2 years ago.

The best one was when I worked as a controller for Megabus in 2013 I used to have to call Glassow control who then had to look at a bit of paper to see what coach was on what service and then had to look at greed road with their depot account as there is not a uk wide system. may not be case now it was silly.

But now it cost very little to fit a tracker but it the software to talk to trackers that cost money NX has the best system if you had the right account and password. I could see who was driving / speed / Driver phone number / any SMS texts from customers on board used to have a good giggle reading them / if coach was on time.