Govia get Thameslink Franchise

[hassaanhc]

The silly thing is that Southern have a pretty good mobile website - if this was extended properly to all the Govia rail franchises, that would probably offer a sizeable chunk of the functionality of their apps. In fact, it even seems that some of the Southern On Track app's buttons just direct you to content on parts of said website!

I also can't seem to find an option for a return journey on it, it always defaults to Single :?

 

[387star]

http://www.thameslinkrailway.com/holding/

 

[infobleep]

Will the new Web site be designed to work across all device types as I feel all modern Web Sites should be designed or will it offer separate and therefore rubbish, mobile / desktop versions.

The Chrome app on my mobile has an option, request desktop version. Unfortunately on most if not all TOC Web Sites it fails to work because they haven't designed one Web Site for all but two separate sites.

 

[Class377/5]

Apps are pointless unless they're actually making use of dedicated phone resources such as GPS (which I don't believe they do). If every website you visit insists on installing an app which then needs regular updating, it defies the whole point of the internet always presenting you with the latest information when you need it.

It's not just rail companies with useless apps, I had the misfortune to install the Monarch Airlines app which does use GPS, except that when you're at an airport it fails to list that airport and you can't see anything to do with your flight.

It's just a "fad" that transport companies think they need an app to be trendy without thinking about what it can actually offer their customers. It's then obvious they rush out the first attempt without ever testing it. The only certainty is that all Govia's apps will be similarly crap.

The uses the phones GPS so not too sure of your point.

I guess the ability to book taxis alongside your ticket that coming next year along with train loading and door to door transport planning isn't a good enough development of the app then?
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Will the new Web site be designed to work across all device types as I feel all modern Web Sites should be designed or will it offer separate and therefore rubbish, mobile / desktop versions.

The Chrome app on my mobile has an option, request desktop version. Unfortunately on most if not all TOC Web Sites it fails to work because they haven't designed one Web Site for all but two separate sites.

The mobile site isn't too different from the main when I played with them the other day.

 

[talldave]

Will the new Web site be designed to work across all device types as I feel all modern Web Sites should be designed or will it offer separate and therefore rubbish, mobile / desktop versions.

The Chrome app on my mobile has an option, request desktop version. Unfortunately on most if not all TOC Web Sites it fails to work because they haven't designed one Web Site for all but two separate sites.

Most sites have a "main site" option at the bottom of the mobile site home page that overrides their default choice and takes you to the desktop site (Southern is a good example). I rarely have to use my phone's "desktop view" option.
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The uses the phones GPS so not too sure of your point.....

The Southern app doesn't make use of my phone's GPS. So I open up the app and it offers me trains from Victoria - and yet I'm at Gatwick. It could have been written to work out where I am and present me with journeys from my current location, but it doesn't, therefore it's just a waste of my time to re-select the station that I'm at (when often the platform data is missing anyway).

I have two bookmarks for realtimetrains - one Victoria, one Gatwick. One click and I have all the information I need. There's no incentive to bother with Southern's crap app.

 

[ert47]

The Southern app doesn't make use of my phone's GPS. So I open up the app and it offers me trains from Victoria - and yet I'm at Gatwick. It could have been written to work out where I am and present me with journeys from my current location, but it doesn't, therefore it's just a waste of my time to re-select the station that I'm at (when often the platform data is missing anyway).

I have two bookmarks for realtimetrains - one Victoria, one Gatwick. One click and I have all the information I need. There's no incentive to bother with Southern's crap app.

Whenever I use the Depatures & Arrivals option in the main menu, it gives me the option of selecting my closest station and even gives me a rough estimate of the distance to that location.
If you have an android, perhaps you have the "share location" option disabled in your settings.

The best thing about the Southern app in my opinion is that it has the option to save your regular journeys ("Common Journey" option) and it automatically updates when you open the app, saving time having to recheck everything again. Also there is a little button next to it that quickly reverses the direction of travel for when you travel back.
Plus having quick access to Tube line statuses doesn't hurt.

 

[user15681]

The Thameslink On Track app will have some additional features to come, though, such as showing live departure boards at Gatwick and Luton airports, as well as live departure boards for Eurostar for those travellers using those onward connections. Even if it is just showing stuff available on mobile websites, it'll be handy to have it all in one place on one app.

 

[Class377/5]

The Southern app doesn't make use of my phone's GPS. So I open up the app and it offers me trains from Victoria - and yet I'm at Gatwick. It could have been written to work out where I am and present me with journeys from my current location, but it doesn't, therefore it's just a waste of my time to re-select the station that I'm at (when often the platform data is missing anyway).

I have two bookmarks for realtimetrains - one Victoria, one Gatwick. One click and I have all the information I need. There's no incentive to bother with Southern's crap app.

Well the Thameslink one does use my phones GPS so that part of your view doesn't apply to the new app for starters. It certainly gives me my two closest stations when I try and works quickly.

As Thameslink app has yet to go fully live and Govia has committed to further improvements, it's too early to simply judge the app. Especially now before its officially released!

 

[jon0844]

These days, it's quite easy and VERY sensible to design a web site to scale for mobile, tablet, desktop and even people who have very large screens (many people now have 2K or 4K monitors).

As long as you design this from the outset, you'll have a site that doesn't need lots of testing for different devices - including devices you've not yet realised will be a 'thing' - or have features that only work in one mode and not another.

Given the smallest screen I have is now a 720x1280 pixel one, and the highest resolution is 1440x2560 (which is higher than the PC monitor I'm now using to write this!) there's less need for a dumbed down mobile page unless it's all about speed or for accessibility reasons.

And most apps are now just a front-end to take you to a mobile site. This is fine until the site goes down during disruption, where it then makes more sense to have a standalone app that gets data in the most simple, compressed, format possible.

I don't think any TOC has yet got this right, and that especially goes for the online booking engines for tickets. Even with a near 100 megabit Internet connection, you won't see these working quickly!

 

[Pretendolino]

For anyone interested, the commercial director of GTR has been announced as David Innis (former Public Sector Director of Atkins).

 

[Manchester77]

These photos are on the #firstcapitalconnect tag on Instagram I was looking at:

 

[Manchester77]

 

[infobleep]

The uses the phones GPS so not too sure of your point.

I guess the ability to book taxis alongside your ticket that coming next year along with train loading and door to door transport planning isn't a good enough development of the app then?
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The mobile site isn't too different from the main when I played with them the other day.

So when booking train tickets can you see the calling points of the in-between stops on the mobile site?

Even if it is very similar it makes far more sense to design and build one site rather than maintain two separate sites.

For South West Trains, every so often there will be a twitter announcement and link and when you follow it on the mobile it says this is not available on mobiles yet.

 

[infobleep]

Most sites have a "main site" option at the bottom of the mobile site home page that overrides their default choice and takes you to the desktop site (Southern is a good example). I rarely have to use my phone's "desktop view" option.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The Southern app doesn't make use of my phone's GPS. So I open up the app and it offers me trains from Victoria - and yet I'm at Gatwick. It could have been written to work out where I am and present me with journeys from my current location, but it doesn't, therefore it's just a waste of my time to re-select the station that I'm at (when often the platform data is missing anyway).

I have two bookmarks for realtimetrains - one Victoria, one Gatwick. One click and I have all the information I need. There's no incentive to bother with Southern's crap app.

Either East Coast or Cross Country don't have a main site option because I couldn't find the option the other day. I forget which one now. Think it was East Coast.

 

[Class377/5]

So when booking train tickets can you see the calling points of the in-between stops on the mobile site?

Even if it is very similar it makes far more sense to design and build one site rather than maintain two separate sites.

For South West Trains, every so often there will be a twitter announcement and link and when you follow it on the mobile it says this is not available on mobiles yet.

Just tried to buy a ticket for tomorrow. Takes me to Southern's website.

 

[Abpj17]

The current FCC app shows the GPS location of the train (on a straight line route) which I've always thought was pretty cool. Apps are generally better functionality on the move and for certain updates - they can update in real time and send push notifications - web pages on mobiles can't generally do that and/or not without keeping the page open/manually refresh.

 

[user15681]

Unless I'm mistaken, there will be the ability to buy tickets through the app directly in future, rather than it redirecting to a mobile site.

 

[91103eastcoast]

Are the FCC pocket timetables still available at stations?

 

[Skimble19]

Either FCC or GN/TL ones will be available. If its specifically FCC ones you're after then it's very unlikely, only very few stations haven't received their new ones yet.

 

[causton]

So Great Northern customers are meant to use the Thameslink On Track app? That's a bit weird.

Either way the app currently isn't on Google Play, so it's a bit early for that poster.

Yes, thought it was an error and was about to tell FCC/GTR, but I guess they didn't want to put GTR as people wouldn't know what it was, and "Thameslink and Great Northern" is way too long, and TSGN will just probably confuse everyone!
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PS: Did anyone ever work out the last FCC service and the first GTR service operating? And would it be based on the start time of the service, end time, a "halfway" time derived from both or what? I am sure they run simultaneously at one point of the evening.

 

[southern442]

Yes, thought it was an error and was about to tell FCC/GTR, but I guess they didn't want to put GTR as people wouldn't know what it was, and "Thameslink and Great Northern" is way too long, and TSGN will just probably confuse everyone!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
PS: Did anyone ever work out the last FCC service and the first GTR service operating? And would it be based on the start time of the service, end time, a "halfway" time derived from both or what? I am sure they run simultaneously at one point of the evening.

From what I have gathered on RTT, the first service to run entirely within the hours of sunday is the first Thameslink/Great Northern train, all trains before that will be FCC.

 

[westcoaster]

Yes, thought it was an error and was about to tell FCC/GTR, but I guess they didn't want to put GTR as people wouldn't know what it was, and "Thameslink and Great Northern" is way too long, and TSGN will just probably confuse everyone!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
PS: Did anyone ever work out the last FCC service and the first GTR service operating? And would it be based on the start time of the service, end time, a "halfway" time derived from both or what? I am sure they run simultaneously at one point of the evening.

I posted a couple of pages back by my reckoning

0129 blackfriars Bedford last FCC
0518 gatwick to blackfriars first TL

 

[Mike395]

I posted a couple of pages back by my reckoning

0129 blackfriars Bedford last FCC
0518 gatwick to blackfriars first TL

I think you're likely to be correct - bearing in mind their social media teams swap at 2am not midnight

 

[westcoaster]

I think you're likely to be correct - bearing in mind their social media teams swap at 2am not midnight

I was basing my assumptions on the fact the hand over time is 01:59-02:00

 

[Statto]

I think you're likely to be correct - bearing in mind their social media teams swap at 2am not midnight

Realtime Trains has it listed & that is correct although technically the first TL is 0020 from Blackfriars to London Bridge but that's a bus replacement service. Because of the engineering works on Sunday no trains Haywards Heath-Brighton the first TL service at Brighton will be 2T00 05:10 Brighton-Bedford Monday morning.

 

[jon0844]

I think you're likely to be correct - bearing in mind their social media teams swap at 2am not midnight

Swap accounts that is. It will be the same people just Tweeting from a different account login (well two this time). Lots of people saying farewell to FCC on Twitter today, and it will be funny that the people saying 'good riddance' will be speaking to the exact same people next week. I guess rather a lot of people really don't know how it all works.

I do hope this is pointed out to the regular moaners!

 

[hassaanhc]

Swap accounts that is. It will be the same people just Tweeting from a different account login (well two this time). Lots of people saying farewell to FCC on Twitter today, and it will be funny that the people saying 'good riddance' will be speaking to the exact same people next week. I guess rather a lot of people really don't know how it all works.

I do hope this is pointed out to the regular moaners!

I'm sure many of the moaners are adamant that every single disruption is due to "FCC incompetence"...

Yeah many people were saying good bye in a positive way, even asking if the social media staff were staying there!

A much-hated TOC they are, most of the reasons aren't their doing either. Surely they don't have more "train faults" and "driver unavailable" issues than other operators? And the 319 interior cleanliness, only seems to really be an issue with the untouched 319/0 and 319/2 ones? :?

 

[JaJaWa]

Unless I'm mistaken, there will be the ability to buy tickets through the app directly in future, rather than it redirecting to a mobile site.

On Track should gain the ability to buy tickets in September 2015.

 

[causton]

I posted a couple of pages back by my reckoning

0129 blackfriars Bedford last FCC
0518 gatwick to blackfriars first TL

So almost impossible to travel on both? Shame

 

[Abpj17]

Swap accounts that is. It will be the same people just Tweeting from a different account login (well two this time). Lots of people saying farewell to FCC on Twitter today, and it will be funny that the people saying 'good riddance' will be speaking to the exact same people next week. I guess rather a lot of people really don't know how it all works.

I do hope this is pointed out to the regular moaners!

Most of the regulars seem to get on with the Twitter staff (the twitter staff are usually as helpful as they can be and quick to contact other parts of FCC as far as I can tell and do what they say they are going to do)

In other news, the trains I've got for the past few days have all been four car formations -_- are some carriages out of service (faults or painting??)