Great Western Coffee Shop

Sites such as Real Time Trains, Open Train Times and Recent Train Times ( http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk http://www.opentraintimes.com and http://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk ) provide us with excellent real time processed data from Network Rail's open data feeds.

The Bus Services Act - passed into law just before the dissolution of parliament in May - provided advanced partnerships, enhanced partnerships, franchising mechanisms for some ... and, less talked about, an open data requirement.   One of the big issues in promoting bus use and keeping passengers is the provision of information so that people can work out their end to end journey - timings and fares.  At present, I challenge anyone to give me (for example) a complete bus service timetable from Melksham to Devizes - with three different operators in different parts of the day, and a fourth on Sunday.

The rail sites I've listed above have come from technical entrepreneurs - small starters - making use of the rail data.  Posting here for anyone who may wish to do the same with buses - a DfT update on Open Bus Data.  I don't have an online link to the following - it came to me via email - anyone interested please let me know and I can forward a copy with embedded links and contacts

If you put your start & end point into Google Maps, timetables are loaded & usually give you accurately the next bus/train (if available) according  to your time parameters. I use it all the time & haven't been let down yet. So where is Google Maps picking up the data currently?

The Travelline feed - http://www.traveline.info - linked to the NaPTAN databases of "public transport access nodes" (stations, bus stops, ferry landings and airports to you and me!).  Lacks 'real time', lacks fares information.   http://naptan.app.dft.gov.uk/Reports/frmStopsSummaryReport

I'm not sure 'real time' data is yet available for every bus, is it?

So shouldn't the DfT start with the bus/coach operators first?

Bus / Coach operators are included in the 'interested parties invited' list.   But surely it's sensible for technical people and knowledgable users also to make quite early inputs so that the final outcome is something that works for everyone / fulfills it's purpose of providing better information for users, rather than being bus industry driven where (on supported routes anyway) the final customer is the local authority, and the driving factors may be cheapness and profit in the current financial year rather than looking forward to the future.

My point being that many buses are untrackable right now & there's quite a cost to the operators in doing this. Until the vast majority are trackable, isn't this a bit premature?

There's little enough profit in a lot of operators businesses that many won't be able to afford to do it.

I don't see the point in waiting for the vast majority of the data to be available before starting. Even 50%, which would probably be concentrated on a few major companies, would be useful. And it will take time - a delay of several years after the data are there would make no sense.

If (as seems likely) a lot of smaller/specialised operators will only join in later, if ever, you will need a way of presenting something meaningful for them. If there is some data, but not the full real-time feed, that should ideally be integrated so it makes sense.
 

Another way of looking at it is that the cost of installing the tracking system on the buses is the expensive bit whereas releasing the data ought to be relatively cheap.  If a bus company has gone to the expense of making there buses trackable then why not maximise the return on that investment by releasing the data?

oh indeed. but as Stuving says, part-integration of data from those not fully trackable is going to push up the amount of work necessary....and there'll be persistant grumpiness from those using buses that aren't trackable

Grovelling apologies for an often used quote, but "ooos gonna pay for it"  :-[
OK, the operator has paid for tracking of most of it's fleet.  It would like a return on that cost by releasing it to an outside independent organisation for a cost.  If they then provide realtime tracking'ish they will want to pass that cost on and make a small profit.  So the passenger will pay for the privilege of tracking?
Tracking'ish as when vehicles develop a fault and are taken off the road/return to depot empty, someone tracking will be annoyed it was almost with them, then vanishes/goes on a return dead journey.
Fortunately, Kernow are totally paranoid about not having any dead runs wherever possible, hence why on occasions two vehicles are within a few minutes of each other; Tinners excepted, of course.  They seem to run together naturally  :(

I have used the NaPTAN bus stops data for mapping, but like Google you end up with straight lines between stops, whereas what I need is the actual route.
There are some bits and pieces available is JourneyWeb the basis of anything useful https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/journeyweb?
There used to be a web site that gave "real time" bus information for Reading and parts of Oxfordshire http://www.livebus.org/reading/ which doesn't seem to load any details anymore. Reading Buses will "sell" you an app. But as most of the info on Reading bus stops should be filed under Fiction, I won't be rushing out for it.
As suggested it needs somebody to pull something together, it would need to be robust enough to allow for the ever changing route and timetable systems.

|And where can one obtain easily this ever-changing data that can change anytime, with only 6 weeks notice? There is no central location. As I said, overly premature, methinks

56 days. 8 weeks.

Except (of course) in the event of an operator ceasing to trade.  I can't imagine that ever happening - especially in Somerset  ;D ;D

I find the bus tracking app excellent, exact location every 10 seconds, has come in very useful on numerous occasions. Even handier in the current cold conditions.

As the OP made clear, what's happening is three workshops to discuss what to do and how if bus open data is to work. The DfT are specifically looking for help with implementing the open data provisions in this year's Buys Act. It itself the act makes nothing happen; regulations have to be drafted for next year. If bus operators, local authorities, or anyone else is to be compelled to do anything that's how it would be.

I fail to see how that can be premature.

The workshops appear to be organised by ODI Leeds, even the London one, though it isn't on their website. It is here, on Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/all-aboard-bus-open-data-workshop-london-tickets-39402234143):

Having seen the agenda above, it isn't....the session at 1415 looks forward, although I'd have thought everyone attending would want to be in every breakout session?

... and so would I.  I can't quite see how those three 'questions' can be treated separately - surely they all overlap?  Or is the intention that each 'breakout working group' considers all three aspects, and perhaps combine their findings?  It's not entirely clear.  :-\

Just to provide some info from an Operators point of view. Most operators now have tracking incorporated into their ticket machines and have since 2012. There is a cost associated with this that operators pay for (data transfer/SIM costs) to the supplying ticket machine/tracking company. BaNES Council undertook an exercise soon after operators had these machines to to upgrade their bus stops with RTI. The cost of installing the infrastructure was paid by the Council. Operators do not get paid for providing the information to the Council but rather contribute funding towards the ongoing maintenance and data processing costs associated with the system. Whilst there are very few RTI systems in Wiltshire any services which go into BANES, such as the X72, 272, X31, 265, can still be tracked using RTI on several apps which use the data e.g UK Buschecker.
There was talk a few years ago from Wiltshire Council of installing RTI screens at key locations across Wiltshire, Bus Stations, Railway Stations, Market Places etc but since budgets have been cut further in the last couple of years it has gone all quiet again.

I have to say as a Bath bus user that the RTI information in our city is worse than useless.  I don't know if this is the fault of the bus companies or the council, but the data is seldom complete or accurate, and incomplete and incorrect information is worse than no information at all.

The problem seems to have been caused by a lack of clarity as to whether the information displayed should be driven by the timetable (ie just serve as an electronic scrolling version of the paper timetable) or whether it should be driven by the bus tracking.  It seems to be driven by a mishmash of data from both sources.  This means that fantasy bus times appear and then are adjusted as the real bus starts to be tracked, except sometimes the two buses fail to merge into one and sometimes the tracking doesn't work (maybe the equipment is broken or the driver has forgotten to switch it on).  We also have an unhelpful "delayed" indication  which flashes with the expected time.  Noone seems to know whether "delayed" alternating with "5 mins" means that the bus ought to be here in 5 minutes but is delayed by an unspecified amount and will therefore take longer than 5 minutes (in which case why is "5 mins" regarded as remotely relevant information) or that it is expected in 5 minutes and that is 5 minutes after it is supposed to be there (in which case why tell us it is delayed - all I care about is that there will be a bus in 5 minutes).  I would favour displays which only started showing a bus when it had been started at the bus station and had its ticket machine programmed ready to leave.  Of course for bus stops close to the bus station that would mean that buses would show for only a few minutes before they arrive, but at least the information would be useable so far as it goes.  The presence of fantasy buses on the display mean that the system has lost all credibility.  BathNES council has lost further credibility in my eyes by installing plenty of bus shelters which look trendy but have opaque sides so that you can't see the bus approach if you are in them and bus stops which look very trendy but which are monolithic slabs rather than posts which mean the passengers loose eye contact with bus drivers behind a monolith just at the point when they are wondering if their hand signal to stop has been seen.

RTI is good in other places, but the system as used in Bath seems to capture the worst of both worlds in that it costs money or the tax and farepayer and doesn't improve bus usability.  Complaints to the Council about the waste of money illicit the reply that it was EU money as if that makes it alright.

Many thanks for that input - there's an issue with these information systems in the financial and operation load placed on the operators.  And it's very much the smaller organisations that have the one-off overhead of looking after their part of the system without an enormous quantity benefit in doing so that have a disproportionate load placed on them.

Very similar thing came up today with reporting and evaluating community rail - for someone like Devon and Cornwall, or Sussex, with multiple lines the overhead can be spread over multiple lines / trains and an increased burden may not be an issue.   For TransWilts, with a single one carriage train and a part time job role only, having to fit in the fixed element common to all CRPs is much more of an issue ... an increase of staff at ACoRP means an increase of people who want to engage (it's in their job descriptions!) and can be stretching - all good stuff, but a limit as to what we can do.

In the medium to longer term, increased and better data availability should help generate more passenger numbers and help newcomers to the buses, so it's not looked at as being a cost with no return (what I am told - please don't quote that as my view - I'm not qualified to comment).  However, if the intent is to run bus services primarily for the established base of users with little market development (perhaps that extra traffic isn't going to be commercial) then I can quite see an "ooz gunna pay" question being real, and a feeling of unhappiness at the new requirement.

As a bus operator, are you going along tomorrow?    The DfT are looking for inputs, and would welcome the view of a medium sized independent.

As a very frustrated bus user in Bath I quite agree. I was really pleased when they first appeared, as not knowing when a bus might appear makes standing at a cold bus stop not a pleasant prospect. However, I soon came to find that the information given can be (in about equal measure):
a) Roughly accurate
b) Completely inaccurate, i.e. forecasting a bus to arrive in three minutes that doesn't arrive for 30, as happened just a few days ago.
c) Totally misleading, i.e. forecasting a bus to arrive in 7 minutes so I decide to quickly walk to the shops, only to see said bus passing me by one minute later (and not knowing if that is a 'phantom' bus and that the forecasted one will appear as predicted, or whether that is the forecasted one).

As Tim says, if it can't be relied on, it is worse than not having any information at all.

You also have to know the final destination of your bus ... no map at all for the out of town busses and only final destination shown.  e.g. 271 at 20:09 shown to Urchfont is clearly the bus for Box, Atworth, Melksham and Devizes, isn't it?  ;)  . Few (if any) staff around to help - though plenty of passengers - into the evening, lack of buses on the left hand side ("Dorchester Street") shown on the displays, displays only at the very ends and not seen by anyone without superb vision in the middle.

The Bath Bus User Panel has had the issues with accurate forecasting excuses explained to it ... but in reality, someone needs to get a real grip on the whole information and real time bus thing, not just Bath.   I was in London with Lisa last night, using buses - "Isn't this bus information at the stop really good" she says.  Yes, and it is proves it can be done.  Of course, the Bath excuse of "buses get caught in traffic" doesn't apply in London or ... or wait ... yes it does. Certainly applied last night, but data still seemed good!

Yes destinations is another of a seemingly very long list of problems with Bath bus information. Another which irks me is that the bus station has maps showing Bath's bus network, but of course it only shows those services run by First, so there is nothing to tell you that there are actually buses serving other parts of the city which appear on the map to be 'bus deserts'.

Back on the topic of real bus time, the screens happily tick down the minutes and then say Due. Normally this seems to mean that the bus is likely to appear in the next minute, but at times it seems to mean you will be hanging around for several minutes. Obviously traffic conditions do cause buses real problems in the city, but they can't explain all the instances I've seen of this happening.

I suspect that the problem with the information in Bath is that there is no "supervision" of the buses as there would be in London.  I get the impression that the drivers are left to turn up for their shift, programme their ticket machine and take the bus out without an "inspector" of similar supervising them.  This means that if they don't turn up, or if they arrive late (perhaps because their inbound journey is late), or the bus isn't there for them to drive, or their ticket machine is faulty or not being used correctly, then management doesn't notice and the RTI system just trolls on displaying the faulty information.

Of course proper supervision of buses requires money, but I despair at the fact that millions of pounds can be wasted on a worse than useless RTI information and swanking new bus shelters but that money is not available to make the buses reliable and affordable. 

On taking a bus out for the first run of the day, a driver only has 12 minutes to do a complete check of that vehicle and sign the defect card (a legal document which then means if VOSA pulls him up later and find a defect, it's the drivers neck on the line).
12 minutes may sound a lot, but try it! Especially in a decker.  IF everything is OK then well and good however.  If the driver finds a headlight out/ramp not working/bells not working, he then has to find an engineer.  Rather like 'where's wally'.  A big yard with busses everywhere, that engineer could be anywhere.  All takes time.  Engineer comes over & hopefully sorted in five minutes or so.  Thus later departure from yard.  If the engineer is still fiddling, comes to the conclusion the vehicle is off the road and to take another one.  Into the office (who are busy on the phones with sick staff & inter depot vehicle movements) & ask for another one please.  Allocated one, so back into the yard and start the checks over again.  Hopefully all good so leave the yard up to 30 minutes late.
On hand over generally (especially 10's/17's - A17's) only five minutes is allocated for vehicle arrive in the station; off load, drive and park up, driver change, check bus quickly, sign defect card, log on to ticket machine, put change into coin trays, roll on to stand & load up.  Of course, if you are late arrival, the change over will add to that delay.
Again if VOSA stop you and find a defect, you cannot say you've just taken over.  You've signed the card so legally you sign the vehicle is roadworthy.
There are several vehicles without tracking (or outdated tracking) and no radio's.  So some will show on RTI displays, and some won't!  I thought due meant within 2 or 3 minutes.