DfT to close Transportdirect.info

[northwichcat]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere. Transportdirect.info will close on 30th September. It was set up in 2004 by the previous government as a way of giving journey planning options for getting from door to door (including all rail options.) More recently features have been added such as giving a CO2 estimate for your journey.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Goodness, I thought it had closed years ago!

 

[Be3G]

There was a small discussion about its closure buried in another thread here, though no date was given at the time. Really really disappointed that it's going to be closed. :cry: I used it a mere few weeks ago to help a fellow forum user come up with an itinerary for journeys combining a train, ferry and bus in one go. Some of that can be achieved with other websites, but they still lack really useful features such as the ability to add extra legs to either end of the journey.

 

[davetheguard]

"Set up in 2004"

And been pretty invisible ever since........

It's not perfect, but at least traveline.org tells people about itself

 

[dk1]

Thats a shame. I use it loads to see if i can get to hotels & racecourses from stations without using a taxi. Always wondered who ran it & how they made money.

 

[Mojo]

Yes its a shame, as it actually works better than Traveline in many cases. I'm still not sure how you look up how long a journey from South Chadderton to Bury on the Tram takes when using Traveline, for example.

 

[JaJaWa]

Traveline have worked to add lots more features to Google Maps recently to replace it.

 

[dk1]

Never used Traveline so will give it a go. Cheers chaps.

 

[EM2]

A colleague mentioned this to me last weekend. It's a shame, it's always been our site of choice for stranded punters!

 

[northwichcat]

Yes its a shame, as it actually works better than Traveline in many cases. I'm still not sure how you look up how long a journey from South Chadderton to Bury on the Tram takes when using Traveline, for example.

There's a way of finding that out.

Go to: http://www.traveline-northwest.co.uk/
Click on timetables.
Where it says bus number type in 'MET5'

You now have the secret Metrolink timetable for Rochdale-East Didsbury that Metrolink don't publish on their website or at tram stops. Note that trams can depart 2 minutes earlier than the times shown.

 

[Carlisle]

More recently features have been added such as giving a CO2 estimate for your journey.

I can't really see that being too much benefit other than for journeys using my car as I have zero control over what age , type or size of vehicles the various public transport providers decide to use

 

[Cletus]

That's a real pity, I use it a lot at work to find postcodes, then exact positions of addresses. Is there a similar website?
http://www.transportdirect.info/web2/maps/FindMapInput.aspx?&repeatingloop=Y

 

[HarleyDavidson]

That's a real pity, I use it a lot at work to find postcodes, then exact positions of addresses. Is there a similar website?
http://www.transportdirect.info/web2/maps/FindMapInput.aspx?&repeatingloop=Y

Yep. Google Maps or Bing Maps. You can enter a postal code into either.

 

[Cletus]

The Transportdirect results that I look for give me the post code and then directs you to exactly where you want, as it shows individual buildings.
Try it with your house

 

[Be3G]

Transport Direct just uses Ordnance Survey mapping, so you could use either OS's Getamap site or their OpenData viewer to achieve much the same thing.

 

[greatkingrat]

On the home page, this thread title is abbreviated to "DfT to close..."

 

[HarleyDavidson]

In your dreams.

 

[brianthegiant]

big shame, always found it much more user friendly than traveline, though it would make more sense to have one good site than two not so good ones

 

[kieron]

I notice that Traveline recommends Transport Direct for anyone trying to plan "national" journeys. I wonder what they'll say once it closes.

The announcement (which may have been posted in other threads for all I know) is here.

The DfT line seems to be that, as Traveline's been going for a few years and Google have incorporated bus and train timetables into their journey planner, they can close Transport Direct.

The fact that Traveline and Google are not designed for someone who wants to plan a return journey, whereas Transport Direct happily shows both legs at once to help you plan your route, is not an obstacle.

 

[JGR]

That's a bit of a shame, I still use that site occasionally.
Whilst I don't use it for rail, it's very useful for buses outside of London, and the interface is much less clunky than Travelline's.

 

[Qwerty133]

have to say I much prefer the version of the thread title on the home page

 

[Tetchytyke]

Have to say I used it once when I was working in Sunderland. It suggested that I get off at Pallion and walk to my destination on the north bank of the Wear a few hundred yards away. All well and good, except it decided I was Jesus rather than needing to use a bridge, which kinda ruined the search results.

Never used it again.

 

[kevconnor]

Have to say I used it once when I was working in Sunderland. It suggested that I get off at Pallion and walk to my destination on the north bank of the Wear a few hundred yards away. All well and good, except it decided I was Jesus rather than needing to use a bridge, which kinda ruined the search results.

Never used it again.

It could have also thought you were Moses and assumed you could part the water.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Have to say I used it once when I was working in Sunderland. It suggested that I get off at Pallion and walk to my destination on the north bank of the Wear a few hundred yards away. All well and good, except it decided I was Jesus rather than needing to use a bridge, which kinda ruined the search results.

Never used it again.

In a similar vain, it suggested I should walk from Lutterworth to Rugby at 6.8 miles. Also never used it again...

 

[Oscar]

Yes, it's a shame that Transport Direct will be lost, though it'd heard this was coming. I agree that it would be better to have one good site rather than two mediocre ones, or even better, one site for public transport timetables and bookings rather than 24 TOC journey planners as well. I know that the choice of booking engine can be beneficial to experts, but for most passengers the number of websites is just confusing and they're not able to benefit from the choice.

 

[infobleep]

The transport direct mobile version of their Web Site wasn't great I needed to get from a road to a hospital. So I'd type in the road name and town and it would would say it can't be found.

Only solution was to go to the full site and then select address option.

I guess they won't be fixing this now it's closing. I didn't use the site so often but I did feel it was better than Google's offering. Not used Travelline recently, if at all, so can't comment on them.

Google is good at suggesting you walk down a duel carriageway when they don't have the public footpaths mapped. I'll gladly walk down a duel carriageway and get run over! At least I'll be hit in the knowledge I have right of way at all times, being a pedestrian. I can reflect on that whilst in hospital or worse dead.

 

[billio]

I am most disappointed by this as i have used the service regularly to plan journeys by public transport. It is especially useful when we are planning walks in other parts of the country needing both train and bus to get to the start or coming home from the end.

Just briefly looking at Traveline it appears a poor replacement because it splits the service across regions. What if you live near a region's boundary. For example I was looking for details of a simple journey from West Yorkshire to Lancahire and it could not find any results.

This appears a completely bonkers decision and puts those who use public transport at a great disadvantage. I must write to my MP.

 

[w1bbl3]

The problem with transport direct is that the interface is now somewhat dated vs alternatives and it doesn't always suggest the best route.

I can understand why DfT would decided to close the service as for it's annual budget of supposedly £6m it doesn't really out perform other market sources. The availability of "open" data effectively rendered the service obsolete, "the market" could create a similar service if demand was there. Much like various train routing engines popped up of the back open.gov data.

 

[Abpj17]

Transport Direct is ever so helpful for bus/train journeys or those over long distance.

As a few others hint at, it's bound to be because the government avoids playing in markets where competitive solutions could be developed.

And the irony of:

http://traveline.info/about_long.html

If when travelling between different parts of Scotland, England and Wales you want to enter a postcode or address at the start and end of your journey, this is a facility offered by Transport Direct which uses Traveline data.

 

[gingerheid]

That's a shame; it was useful for planning a journey into an area where you didn't know the bus routes. Sometimes it came up with very silly suggestions; but very often it came up with wonderful suggestions that you wouldn't otherwise have known about.