Seeing as we've been explicitly called out here as not having it, I feel like I need to write a response. As Peter has said, the data has been released to the Rail Data Marketplace. I'm happy that it has now been released so given that a quest of the last 5 years has been persuading TOCs that it is not scary and that it is fine. Events have now overtaken the rest of the operators that were resistant for various reasons.
RTT up until now has not been signed up to the Rail Data Marketplace. I've had some quite extensive discussions with my team and people I trust in the industry over the last few weeks given we knew this was coming. We have registered it for it* today, against my better judgement, because ultimately it has been inhibitor of some stuff we've wanted to do and also we would not be doing right by our millions of users if we did not do so.
I normally stick quite firmly to my principles and beliefs. So here's what they are.
1.
Open Data should not have any form of gate keeping on it and it should be free and available to all. RDM has an approval process which, in the past, users have apparently been rejected from. That doesn't feel very "Open": Open Data should be accessible by all without limitation. There are various clauses in the licences around the platform that I'm uncomfortable with, albeit some of them have been smoothed out following my requests. It has an overarching overtly commercial approach to data that is almost all free.
2.
It's the wrong solution to the right problem. It has introduced a Single Point of Failure into many railway products and it appears to me that there is no realistic route to escalating them. It was suggested to me as a discovery platform but instead it is somewhat of an overengineered system that is all things to all people.
3.
And finally, it has the wrong custodian. When it was being rolled out I was being actively pushed to migrating my commercial clients over to it. RDM have told me that there is no commercial wall between RDM and the rest of RDG - which deeply concerns me. RDG are uniquely placed in this industry to co-ordinate and develop solutions to problems with privileged access. In my entire time in the industry, I have seen them do this multiple times with things I have done including very recently. That isn't necessarily problem once something is in the public domain - but why would you want to give them a head start? Why would I, or anyone else, want to give RDG indicators as to what we are up to? That would be seen as commercially sensitive anywhere else.
Last time I raised this as a significant concern, the response came back that I should stop being so cynical. That does not really bring me great trust if I'm going to put my eggs in one basket and rely on my livelihood from it.
* I'm sure they'll take their time approving it though.
(I should point out that I've said all this on public fora in the past, albeit with smaller audiences.)
www.realtimetrains.co.uk
