East Midland Railway (EMR) multi-modal journey planner

[fandroid]

It has been reported on the online rail news site https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/06/east-midlands-railway-launches-multi-modal-journey-planner.html that "East Midlands Railway is introducing a new journey planner which allows people to plan their entire journey, door-to-door".

This is on their website and takes you from wherever you are to wherever you want to be, in accordance with stated preferences. That's not a new thing (think Google Maps or the Bus Checker series of apps) but it claims to be able to provide real-time updates during the journey via EMR Messenger. It would be good if forum members could try it out and see if it contributes anything really new to the traveller's experience.

Edited to comply with Forum rules.

 

[Benjwri]

I can’t find any actual evidence it exists apart from a few articles, nowhere on their site does it show any planner that accepts anything but stations. EMR Messenger is absolutely terrible though, very poorly executed and slow.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jun 2023 ==

The wider idea of a multi modal planner is good though, especially if it incorporated live data for buses and trains, something nothing I’ve found manages properly except Apple maps, and nothing is in the right place on that.

What would be really useful is something which lets you see the overall price of each journey, but unfortunately bus fare information is a huge mess, and the coach operators price on demand, so I doubt it’s happening soon.

 

[fandroid]

I found it quickly enough. On my phone, the standard station to station railway planner turns up at the top. Scrolling down below a Skegness advert brings me to "Plan your Journey". It takes place names OK and apparently takes what3words locations too. I chucked in a random journey request from my street to Grange in Borrowdale and it took its time but came up with four itineraries. BUT, the presentation of those was dreadful; just a series of symbols against a time axis. Unlike any other planner of this sort it didn't have "Current location" as a top option.

As well as Messenger it can use WhatsApp.

I might have further plays with it, but it doesn't show up well against the two others I mentioned in post #1.

 

[sheff1]

On Chrome the link did not work at all.
On Edge I could enter a test journey - nothing complicated (Stocksbridge to Hull) - then a circle went round and round for a minute or so before itinerary options appeared. Clicking on one of the vertical options with symbols brought up a more detailed version which showed said itinerary was the same as on Google Maps (which loaded in a couple of seconds) but still with less detail - no info on walking routes between legs or intermediate stops.

Will give it a go with Safari on an actual journey to test the real time update if I remember.

 

[fandroid]

I found the more detailed itinerary by hitting the search symbol with the + in it. I agree that the walking sections, say between a station and a bus stop should be shown on a map, as getting lost at that stage might be easily done and very inconvenient!

Edit: The time input for the journey initially uses the 24 hr clock, but if you use the edit function it reverts to ye olde 12 hour clock. Barry Doe would go bananas!

Edit: If you open up the bus or train sections of a journey it shows the two stops prior to the destination and the times there. I'm not sure that anyone really wants that info!

It will be interesting to see if the real time updates help at all, but to properly road test that function we'd need some proper disruption. Perhaps try it out on TPE!

Bus Checker was far quicker to find itineraries for the same start and finish and gave detailed walking route instructions