BusTimes.Org

[stuart81]

Noticed that some routes aren't tracking with some operators but the majority of their routes are which seems unusual:

First Leeds: 7 tracks but 7A and 7S don't
Blackpool: 3 tracks but 3C doesn't

 

[Hyebone]

Noticed that some routes aren't tracking with some operators but the majority of their routes are which seems unusual:

First Leeds: 7 tracks but 7A and 7S don't
Blackpool: 3 tracks but 3C doesn't

Operator/BODS issue

 

[Teapot42]

This will be an update to the VIX ticket machines they use.

You'll notice Ticketer and others have never tracked whilst "dead". VIX are just really old!

That's actually quite a pain - it can be useful to see an out of service bus approaching for routes where they run dead to, for example, the first service of the day. If you are near the start of the route then you get very little notice of delays or cancellations otherwise.

 

[markymark2000]

That's actually quite a pain - it can be useful to see an out of service bus approaching for routes where they run dead to, for example, the first service of the day. If you are near the start of the route then you get very little notice of delays or cancellations otherwise.

In South Wales it was useful to track Stagecoach rail replacement vehicles too. In some areas useful for when the buses didn't track on a route but they were in service. Handy for anyone using Stagecoach to run a contract such as Barclays or Amazon for the Merseyside division. You knew where the buses are/were despite the route not being a local bus.

 

[Hyebone]

That's actually quite a pain - it can be useful to see an out of service bus approaching for routes where they run dead to, for example, the first service of the day. If you are near the start of the route then you get very little notice of delays or cancellations otherwise.

I agree 100%.

 

[Hophead]

Anyone able to advise on the situation in Scotland with BODS and tracking? Lothian track, as do West Coast, McGill & Stagecoach. First, however, do not, and it would have been helpful to know recently if the evening bus back to my Glasgow hotel would eventually arrive (it was only a 10-minute walk, just with a seemingly pointless bit of hanging around waiting for a bus that probably wouldn't be coming).

 

[EnviroExplorer]

Anyone able to advise on the situation in Scotland with BODS and tracking? Lothian track, as do West Coast, McGill & Stagecoach. First, however, do not, and it would have been helpful to know recently if the evening bus back to my Glasgow hotel would eventually arrive (it was only a 10-minute walk, just with a seemingly pointless bit of hanging around waiting for a bus that probably wouldn't be coming).

Somebody else can no doubt give a more detailed response, but as I understand Scottish operators are not required to comply with BODS as it’s only mandatory in England. Until something changes within the Scottish government it’s unlikely the situation with First will change, as it’ll be deemed an unnecessary expense by them to supply data to third party providers.

 

[Hophead]

Thanks. Seems strange that some of the smaller operators are willing to supply data, while First does not. Especially as they do seem to have tracking available on their own website.

 

[markymark2000]

Anyone able to advise on the situation in Scotland with BODS and tracking? Lothian track, as do West Coast, McGill & Stagecoach. First, however, do not, and it would have been helpful to know recently if the evening bus back to my Glasgow hotel would eventually arrive (it was only a 10-minute walk, just with a seemingly pointless bit of hanging around waiting for a bus that probably wouldn't be coming).

Lothian data comes from Transport for Edinburghs API.
West Coast Motors (normal service), McGills and various other Scotland operators data comes from a Passenger API or some API that fuels Passenger systems (Passenger being the platform they use for their website). Essentially if the buses don't track on the operators website or on MyTrip, they won't track on Bustimes.

West Coast Motors Citylink stuff and Stagecoach data comes from a Stagecoach tracking API somewhere.

Somebody else can no doubt give a more detailed response, but as I understand Scottish operators are not required to comply with BODS as it’s only mandatory in England. Until something changes within the Scottish government it’s unlikely the situation with First will change, as it’ll be deemed an unnecessary expense by them to supply data to third party providers.

Scotland are going it alone. As per, a United Kingdom just doesn't work and everyone does their own thing. Only winners are consultants as taxpayers money gets endlessly wasted on duplicate systems.

 

[Ghostbus]

That's actually quite a pain - it can be useful to see an out of service bus approaching for routes where they run dead to, for example, the first service of the day. If you are near the start of the route then you get very little notice of delays or cancellations otherwise.

Useful only for people who know how buses work.

The best use of bustimes is to get non-bus people out of the mindset that buses are unreliable and a deeply mysterious thing. So it can't help to distract them with buses running out of service that may or may not be their bus (highly likely to confuse given in my experience, out of service buses are not consistently displayed as such in the data).

Now, If operators could be convinced to provide comprehensive and always reliable full operation tracking information (essentially the duty board and scheduled dead mileage) for the benefit of those who want to catch a bus at a start of a route (where most of the time your bus will be a bus coming the other way in service, but not so often you can rely on it as the indication your service is on time or even going to run), I'm all for that.

 

[Yorkshireguy]

Thanks. Seems strange that some of the smaller operators are willing to supply data, while First does not. Especially as they do seem to have tracking available on their own website.

McGill's and West Coast Motors use Passenger to provide their websites, which publishes open data for timetables, stops and ticketing, and has easy-to-find endpoints to supply realtime data to the website. Lothian and Transport for Edinburgh have their own APIs that the site gets its data from. First have a fairly unique solution, which does have a data source which is (was?) technically accessible if you know where to look, but as the data's not open-source (quote below from the First Aberdeen thread) I believe it's a legal issue.

BODS not being able to extend to Scotland and Wales is a real shame - the data supplied is consistent and of much higher detail, making it far easier to use. Even being able to see which exact service a bus is meant to be on, and therefore its delay, is of great benefit to passengers, which the Passenger-based sources cannot do.

The tracking data that appeared for First Aberdeen was likely sourced through the award winning FirstBus App and therefor isn't open-source data. As of yet First Aberdeen and Glasgow are yet to include tracking in any open data sources such as the Bus Open Data Service (BODS) and its safe to assume probably won't until it becomes a legal requirement as it is in England.

 

[WibbleWobble]

BODS not being able to extend to Scotland and Wales is a real shame

A Welsh version is under development, known as WBDS or Welsh Bus Data Service.

 

[Strathtay 260]

That's actually quite a pain - it can be useful to see an out of service bus approaching for routes where they run dead to, for example, the first service of the day. If you are near the start of the route then you get very little notice of delays or cancellations otherwise.

Yes, definitely! That's how I noticed this, and at first I thought the bus was probably not running as it wasn't tracking dead but then realised none track dead now.

 

[Teapot42]

A Welsh version is under development, known as WBDS or Welsh Bus Data Service.

Why on earth do they need to develop a version of something that already exists? The costs involved must be far higher than any cost to access BODS and I'd imagine you'll get issues with cross-border services if there are two systems running at the same time.

 

[M60lad]

Not to sure why but for some reason BusTimes isn't tracking any BeeNetowork services at the moment this applies to all services whether operated by Diamond, Go Northwest or Stagecoach.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Not to sure why but for some reason BusTimes isn't tracking any BeeNetowork services at the moment this applies to all services whether operated by Diamond, Go Northwest or Stagecoach.

It's the usual Ticketer issues, this just happens sometimes, you can also see lots more buses are missing, pretty much everything except Stagecoach and a few others.

Look at London, all the buses have disappeared from its map too.

 

[Hyebone]

BODS issue...

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

It's the usual Ticketer issues, this just happens sometimes, you can also see lots more buses are missing, pretty much everything except Stagecoach and a few others.

Look at London, all the buses have disappeared from its map too.

Carrying over from the now closed outage thread bustimes is up and running again, down for about two and a half hours. And yes the effect was just as described above.

 

[Goldfish62]

Carrying over from the now closed outage thread bustimes is up and running again, down for about two and a half hours. And yes the effect was just as described above.

It's increasingly unreliable for London stuff, while TfL and other third party apps seem fine. I assume it's an ongoing issue since the TfL cyberattack, because although TfL can now access and upload operator schedules these are still not getting though to Bustimes.org because there are a lot of out of date timetables showing, and routes which have changed hands recently are simply not showing at all.

 

[Hyebone]

It's increasingly unreliable for London stuff, while TfL and other third party apps seem fine. I assume it's an ongoing issue since the TfL cyberattack, because although TfL can now access and upload operator schedules these are still not getting though to Bustimes.org because there are a lot of out of date timetables showing, and routes which have changed hands recently are simply not showing at all.

bustimes.org is very much a GIGO system (Garbage in, garbage out). It can only display as much information as it's provided with by BODS, TFL data, Stagecoach Open Data etc.

 

[Goldfish62]

bustimes.org is very much a GIGO system (Garbage in, garbage out). It can only display as much information as it's provided with by BODS, TFL data, Stagecoach Open Data etc.

But "Live London Bus Map" must use the same data yet is able to track what Bustimes currently can't.

Before the cyber attack Bustimes was able to match each bus to its running number so you could track it v the schedule. That link is currently severed and I assume that's what's causing all the knock-on issues.

 

[Robertj21a]

bustimes.org is very much a GIGO system (Garbage in, garbage out). It can only display as much information as it's provided with by BODS, TFL data, Stagecoach Open Data etc.

I don't think it has ever claimed anything else. It simply reports what is on the system at the time and, in my experience, is about 95% accurate.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

But "Live London Bus Map" must use the same data yet is able to track what Bustimes currently can't.

Before the cyber attack Bustimes was able to match each bus to its running number so you could track it v the schedule. That link is currently severed and I assume that's what's causing all the knock-on issues.

Is "Live London Bus Map", actually reporting live locations though? Or is it estimating locations based on estimated times at stops further down the route?

 

[markymark2000]

But "Live London Bus Map" must use the same data yet is able to track what Bustimes currently can't.

Before the cyber attack Bustimes was able to match each bus to its running number so you could track it v the schedule. That link is currently severed and I assume that's what's causing all the knock-on issues.

It depends which data source people are using.
I know that London Vehicle Finder for example isn't/wasn't 'live tracking' buses. It just estimates where the bus is based off the countdown timer and the 'tracking' is just the bus moving at regular increments along a straight line between stops (I noted that any bus which goes around a corner, the bus tracks as going through buildings and not following the actual road layout.).

This is very different to Bustimes which takes live tracking information supplied by TFL, to the Bus Open Data Service, and this provides the actual location of the bus.

 

[Goldfish62]

It depends which data source people are using.
I know that London Vehicle Finder for example isn't/wasn't 'live tracking' buses. It just estimates where the bus is based off the countdown timer and the 'tracking' is just the bus moving at regular increments along a straight line between stops (I noted that any bus which goes around a corner, the bus tracks as going through buildings and not following the actual road layout.).

This is very different to Bustimes which takes live tracking information supplied by TFL, to the Bus Open Data Service, and this provides the actual location of the bus.

Thanks. That explains it very clearly!

 

[Robertj21a]

It depends which data source people are using.
I know that London Vehicle Finder for example isn't/wasn't 'live tracking' buses. It just estimates where the bus is based off the countdown timer and the 'tracking' is just the bus moving at regular increments along a straight line between stops (I noted that any bus which goes around a corner, the bus tracks as going through buildings and not following the actual road layout.).

This is very different to Bustimes which takes live tracking information supplied by TFL, to the Bus Open Data Service, and this provides the actual location of the bus.

Yes, I much prefer the Bus Times approach. By comparison, the LVF is quite poor really.

 

[Goldfish62]

Yes, I much prefer the Bus Times approach. By comparison, the LVF is quite poor really.

Personally I've never really understood the purpose of LVF other than for locating a specific vehicle and it seems a rather outdated and clunky thing now. There's not even a mobile-friendly version of the website.

 

[APT618S]

Personally I've never really understood the purpose of LVF other than for locating a specific vehicle and it seems a rather outdated and clunky thing now. There's not even a mobile-friendly version of the website.

Both Bustimes and LVF are extremely useful and I always use both on a mobile.
I actually prefer to use LVF when in London* due to the following functions:
Ability to see all the buses ID out on a particular route at a glance.
Ability to toggle a route by running order and vehicle ID order.
Ability to put multiple stops into the entry field.
Ability to use wildcards when entering bus ID.
Ability to see a list of "new" buses.
Never known it to "stick" whereas with Bustimes you have to be careful as sometimes when you click on a bus it will say "x minutes ago" in that location.

* and Edinburgh (LRT) for Lothian but less so the Regional (RVF) version.

 

[Deerfold]

It depends which data source people are using.
I know that London Vehicle Finder for example isn't/wasn't 'live tracking' buses. It just estimates where the bus is based off the countdown timer and the 'tracking' is just the bus moving at regular increments along a straight line between stops (I noted that any bus which goes around a corner, the bus tracks as going through buildings and not following the actual road layout.).

This is very different to Bustimes which takes live tracking information supplied by TFL, to the Bus Open Data Service, and this provides the actual location of the bus.

Is the actual tracking information now available?

When I worked for TfL, I produced data based on data from the buses and from the Countdown API could only see data at stops. I could access information about where buses are exactly, but not in real time (and, at the time at least, not in data routinely available to the public).

It should be noted that buses only report to TfL every 30 seconds and if a message doesn't get through it is not resent.

I was once publicly shamed by the IT department who shared a list of the 10 largest files on the London Buses system, with a reminder that we were not supposed to store personal or video files. My file was the largest by at least a factor of 2, but was not personal or a video file. It was tracking information for the entire TfL network for 1 day.

 

[markymark2000]

Is the actual tracking information now available?

Yes, you can now get lat/long coordinates for TFL buses but I believe this is only available via Bus Open Data. You need an account to download it but when you are signed in, you can download just TFL bus data in a 'Siri-VM' (Service Interface for Real-time Information) format, or you can download all UK AVL data (including TFL) in a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification Realtime) format.

Not sure how technical you have to be to understand the data, but the data is there.