National Rail App

[modernrail]

Live arrival and departure boards are available for all services at all stations on the official website and app. Trainline app has similar (which is what the average passenger is likely to refer to if they're on a train or heading to the station and almost always on a mobile device). Live departures are comprehensive and the passenger isn't really planning a journey by that point.

I completely agree the both the NRE website and LNER's compulsory reservations and ticketing policies all absolutely suck. But I'm hoping they never get round to updating the "antiquated", i.e. simple, uncomplicated and entirely functional NRE app!

If I am understanding you correctly, that is not enough. Passengers need not just the station based arrival and departure boards. They need to be able to click into the journey itself to see the changes for that service and any late running, alternative connections etc. Having to piece that together from arrival and departure boards would be insane when the journey information is readily available, if only whoever works the National Rail website would reverse the thing they have added that locks out journey details for journeys where the feed from whoever is saying one of the relevant services within the journey is sold out or has already left it’s starting point.

As an example, if you are catching the 10.08 to somewhere, changing twice, each leg of that journey might have a problem. If leg 1 is running late you want to go into the website journey planner to see if are going to make the connection. It might tell you no chance. It might tell you leg 2 is running late and so good chance.

Then say you do make it on to the late running 2nd leg, you want to be able to check your 2nd connection.

Because somebody has lost the plot they have set any journey that has already to started in such a way that you can’t click into the journey to see this detail. You used to be able to. It’s just a decision that has been taken by a human that is wrong and needs to be reversed. I do wonder if the designers/managers who signed this off actually catch trains.

All of this is completely possible on Trainline. It used to be completely possible on the National Rail website.

 

[Deafdoggie]

If I am understanding you correctly, that is not enough. Passengers need not just the station based arrival and departure boards. They need to be able to click into the journey itself to see the changes for that service and any late running, alternative connections etc. Having to piece that together from arrival and departure boards would be insane when the journey information is readily available, if only whoever works the National Rail website would reverse the thing they have added that locks out journey details for journeys where the feed from whoever is saying one of the relevant services within the journey is sold out or has already left it’s starting point.

As an example, if you are catching the 10.08 to somewhere, changing twice, each leg of that journey might have a problem. If leg 1 is running late you want to go into the website journey planner to see if are going to make the connection. It might tell you no chance. It might tell you leg 2 is running late and so good chance.

Then say you do make it on to the late running 2nd leg, you want to be able to check your 2nd connection.

Because somebody has lost the plot they have set any journey that has already to started in such a way that you can’t click into the journey to see this detail. You used to be able to. It’s just a decision that has been taken by a human that is wrong and needs to be reversed. I do wonder if the designers/managers who signed this off actually catch trains.

All of this is completely possible on Trainline. It used to be completely possible on the National Rail website.

But most ticket sellers will alert you to an issue. I've been on a train and had alerts to tell me the connection is running late, or cancelled. So why do you need to be getting the information elsewhere?
To be honest, it never occurs to me to look at NRE as i'd just look at the ticket retailers site, or the train operators site.

 

[greatkingrat]

I fully agree with your opinion of the latest version of National Rail's journey planner website.

We'd to go to Dundee on Saturday for a funeral at 14:30.
According to NR website journey planner there are no journeys from Tweedbank that arrive in Dundee between 12:37 and 14:20. The latter would be cutting it a bit fine. The former would mean getting the 10:20 from Tweedbank and having nearly two hours to kill in Dundee.

Realtimetrains shows there are actually trains from Edinburgh arriving in Dundee at 13:22 and 13:41 which National Rail don't appear to know about. It's a half hourly service from Tweedbank to Edinburgh.

Whilst I knew of the existence of other journey planners many people don't. If the only options really were arriving at 12:37 or 14:20 I would have taken the car.

The NR Journey Planner is correct in this case though. While there is a train arriving in Dundee at 1321, it only has a 7 minute connection from the 1049 from Tweedbank, below the minimum 10 minutes allowed. You might make it, but there is no guarantee.

As for the 1341 arrival in Dundee, this is shown on RTT as "runs as required". I'm not sure why, but it didn't run last Saturday, and may well not run this Saturday either.

Realtime Trains | 1A83 1230 Edinburgh to Aberdeen | 15/06/2024

Real-time train running information for 1A83 1230 departure from Edinburgh to Aberdeen on 15/06/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[modernrail]

But most ticket sellers will alert you to an issue. I've been on a train and had alerts to tell me the connection is running late, or cancelled. So why do you need to be getting the information elsewhere?
To be honest, it never occurs to me to look at NRE as i'd just look at the ticket retailers site, or the train operators site.

Call me old fashioned. I think I should be able to rely on the nationally funded official source with access to all the data.

Especially when it is only that source that has decided to lock out the information. The fact that none of the unofficial sites do it shows how stupid it is. They understand what functionality is required. The keepers of the National Rail website journey planner have taken a weird arbitrary and passenger unfriendly alternative decision for no good reason.

On Trainline, it still carries through the fake sold out message but also still tells you about that journey as they presumably get that lots of people are on it and might need to know stuff.

 

[Deepgreen]

The very fact that there are so many 'competing' sites that offer differing information is a failure in itself. That 'foreign' sites seem often to be able to do better for the UK than the UK's own sites can is bizarre and shameful. I simply use RTT for planning journeys so that I can see what actually is timetabled not what someone thinks can be achieved with connections, ticketing, etc. Of course, I have a pretty good knowledge of railway operations and station geography, which helps hugely, so I pity those who are coming to it 'blind' as it were.

 

[Teds]

I must admit that I didn't know that the website and the app provided different information. Thank you for putting me right. I will have to download the app. I found the lack of information about connections for which there are supposedly no tickets available to be very frustrating. The website gave up completely on overtime ban Sundays with engineering work and gave the information that there were no trains yet some trains ran and likewise the replacement buses.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Call me old fashioned. I think I should be able to rely on the nationally funded official source with access to all the data.

Especially when it is only that source that has decided to lock out the information. The fact that none of the unofficial sites do it shows how stupid it is. They understand what functionality is required. The keepers of the National Rail website journey planner have taken a weird arbitrary and passenger unfriendly alternative decision for no good reason.

On Trainline, it still carries through the fake sold out message but also still tells you about that journey as they presumably get that lots of people are on it and might need to know stuff.

I wouldn't call the train operators website "unofficial"

 

[modernrail]

I wouldn't call the train operators website "unofficial"

If my journey involves 3 different operators, which one should I look at?

It should be the National one that is the most integrated.

 

[Deafdoggie]

If my journey involves 3 different operators, which one should I look at?

It should be the National one that is the most integrated.

Any of them. The one you bought the ticket from. It doesn't matter. They're still very official. They'll still provide all the information you want. You're just fixated on one app when there are loads of official ones that do a much better job.

 

[modernrail]

Any of them. The one you bought the ticket from. It doesn't matter. They're still very official. They'll still provide all the information you want. You're just fixated on one app when there are loads of official ones that do a much better job.

From the website:

‘You've found the gateway to Britain's national rail network. The portal to rail travel, including train times information, fares enquiries; promotions; ...’

So I think I am entitled to be fixated on it. It has always been intended as the umbrella overlay across all former BR services and is quite clearly meant to be the service that helps passengers deal with the complexity of the system by providing what National Rail said on launch of the new website is:

"cleaner, more modern, and full of better information".

It obviously isn’t.

As I and everybody else in this country subsidise the railways to the tune of billions, it is perfectly reasonable to expect the RDG’s official information portal to provide official information of the type required by a rail passenger.

So yes, I am fixated on it doing its job. It is the official overall engine and as such, the information portal that attracts the most daily users of all the information apps. That is because it is the official one, that people are directed to by the industry/the railway.

It’s own tag says ‘Welcome to THE official source for UK Trains’ (emphasis added)

I really don’t get what is so hard to understand about this.

 

[Bantamzen]

The very fact that there are so many 'competing' sites that offer differing information is a failure in itself. That 'foreign' sites seem often to be able to do better for the UK than the UK's own sites can is bizarre and shameful.

Is it really "shameful", or just a reality that most users simply don't use / need the level of information being asked for on this thread? And the more detailed information is available from national Rail, just via it's mobile app which I suspect would be the go-to for most mobile users in the first place. Its perhaps worth remembering that these tools are built for the average user, not rail enthusiasts.

I simply use RTT for planning journeys so that I can see what actually is timetabled not what someone thinks can be achieved with connections, ticketing, etc. Of course, I have a pretty good knowledge of railway operations and station geography, which helps hugely, so I pity those who are coming to it 'blind' as it were.

Most people seem to manage perfectly well, so I'm not sure they need any pity.

 

[yorksrob]

Is it really "shameful", or just a reality that most users simply don't use / need the level of information being asked for on this thread? And the more detailed information is available from national Rail, just via it's mobile app which I suspect would be the go-to for most mobile users in the first place. Its perhaps worth remembering that these tools are built for the average user, not rail enthusiasts.


Most people seem to manage perfectly well, so I'm not sure they need any pity.

It is shameful.

The fact that I can type in my journey requirements and the website will spit out a journey that apparently meets those requirements - but it won't then allow me to look into that journey and where the changes are, how long the journey legs are, which companies are operating different legs - all because there apparently isn't a through ticket, is extremely poor design.

Those trying to defend it might as well argue that black is white.

 

[modernrail]

Is it really "shameful", or just a reality that most users simply don't use / need the level of information being asked for on this thread? And the more detailed information is available from national Rail, just via it's mobile app which I suspect would be the go-to for most mobile users in the first place. Its perhaps worth remembering that these tools are built for the average user, not rail enthusiasts.


Most people seem to manage perfectly well, so I'm not sure they need any pity.

Bizarre arguments all round really.

They don’t need it and can get it from elsewhere. So why not just make it available on the the main site. It won’t be that hard. It used to provide it.

If you think rail enthusiasts are the only people who need this information why do you think Trainline have gone to the effort to provide it?

Can you give me a single reason why the website should not be changed back to providing ‘that level of detail’. Who is National Rail benefiting from not making the change? I can’t think of anybody so it just an error of judgment. Not dramatic but as the functionality is important (which is why everybody else provides it) it needs sorting.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jun 2024 ==

It is shameful.

The fact that I can type in my journey requirements and the website will spit out a journey that apparently meets those requirements - but it won't then allow me to look into that journey and where the changes are, how long the journey legs are, which companies are operating different legs - all because there apparently isn't a through ticket, is extremely poor design.

Those trying to defend it might as well argue that black is white.

Exactly. It really isn’t rocket science but given its primary purpose, it is stupid design that absolutely needs sorting out.

 

[Bantamzen]

It is shameful.

The fact that I can type in my journey requirements and the website will spit out a journey that apparently meets those requirements - but it won't then allow me to look into that journey and where the changes are, how long the journey legs are, which companies are operating different legs - all because there apparently isn't a through ticket, is extremely poor design.

Those trying to defend it might as well argue that black is white.

Shameful would be not providing the data through the mobile site and not allowing the data feeds to be used elsewhere, say in their own app or third party products. But that's not the case, the data is available through their app & through third party products.

Edit: And a good reason to use the app over the mobile site is that the app is designed to minimise data use, as well as provide speedier use due to not relying on constantly downloading visuals, which is why so many businesses have them alongside their web sites. Sometimes, as with the National Rail app, additional functionality can be added such as alert's for user's planned journeys.

 

[modernrail]

Shameful would be not providing the data through the mobile site and not allowing the data feeds to be used elsewhere, say in their own app or third party products. But that's not the case, the data is available through their app & through third party products.

I was veering away from shameful but actually now you put it like that, it is shameful that they do all that yet totally inexplicably don’t realise they should have the functionality on their own website.

 

[josh-j]

If they can do it in the app they can do it on the website. They've hobbled the most open frontend to their journey planning information for no good reason.

Though I presume the only reason the app works differently is that they haven't got around to updating it yet.

 

[modernrail]

Shameful would be not providing the data through the mobile site and not allowing the data feeds to be used elsewhere, say in their own app or third party products. But that's not the case, the data is available through their app & through third party products.

Edit: And a good reason to use the app over the mobile site is that the app is designed to minimise data use, as well as provide speedier use due to not relying on constantly downloading visuals, which is why so many businesses have them alongside their web sites. Sometimes, as with the National Rail app, additional functionality can be added such as alert's for user's planned journeys.

Still not a reason not to have the functionality on the website or for a search on website and app to produce a different result.

 

[wokspotter]

Call me old fashioned. I think I should be able to rely on the nationally funded official source with access to all the data.

Especially when it is only that source that has decided to lock out the information. The fact that none of the unofficial sites do it shows how stupid it is. They understand what functionality is required. The keepers of the National Rail website journey planner have taken a weird arbitrary and passenger unfriendly alternative decision for no good reason.

On Trainline, it still carries through the fake sold out message but also still tells you about that journey as they presumably get that lots of people are on it and might need to know stuff.

It does make me wonder if the people coming to the defence of the new version of the National Rail website have been involved in the design or implementation of it.

 

[Bantamzen]

It does make me wonder if the people coming to the defence of the new version of the National Rail website have been involved in the design or implementation of it.

Yep that'll be it...

And for the record I have never worked at or for National Rail, on their website or their app. However I do work in IT, and I do know that no matter what you do with an application, someone will be along to moan about it, and usually not to the people that can do anything about it.

So I say again, maybe most people just, I don't know, find their information without all this drama. After all millions of people buy tickets online and manage to get from A to B and back again. If some people here really can't sleep at night because of it, or feel that some huge social injustice is taking place, then feed it back to National Rail. Tell them what it is you want, and why it would be useful. Why they removed this function if it was there (I don't know either way because I've never used the website for this function) will be best known to them, and they can decide to bring it back or not. Otherwise other routes to the information are freely available via mobile and PC....

 

[modernrail]

Yep that'll be it...

And for the record I have never worked at or for National Rail, on their website or their app. However I do work in IT, and I do know that no matter what you do with an application, someone will be along to moan about it, and usually not to the people that can do anything about it.

So I say again, maybe most people just, I don't know, find their information without all this drama. After all millions of people buy tickets online and manage to get from A to B and back again. If some people here really can't sleep at night because of it, or feel that some huge social injustice is taking place, then feed it back to National Rail. Tell them what it is you want, and why it would be useful. Why they removed this function if it was there (I don't know either way because I've never used the website for this function) will be best known to them, and they can decide to bring it back or not. Otherwise other routes to the information are freely available via mobile and PC....

If you are not the official spokesperson why are you writing as such?

This is a discussion forum. It is not for
you to direct those discussing what they should or should not do next, nor to be the final arbiter of whether the new National Rail website is or is not adequate.

Your view is that it is. The view of many others is that it is not.

You have also failed to give one single good reason why useful (and many would say critical) functionality has been removed when it doesn’t need to have been, which is a bit weird bearing in mind that is the point is being discussed.

So, what are the good reasons why that functionality has been removed, in your opinion (if you don’t work on it)?

 

[Adam Williams]

So, what are the good reasons why that functionality has been removed, in your opinion (if you don’t work on it)?

It's not a good reason, but as far as I can tell it's as follows:

RDG desperately want NRE to be a more seamless avenue for buying tickets, handing over to their members (TOCs) for the fulfilment process. This means it's starting to be designed for ticket sales. It's not designed for looking up information about journeys.

The NRE re-design already made inroads to this goal by cutting out the pesky third-party retailer handovers and defaulting to the train operators that run the trains involved in the search with a streamlined Plan-Select-Buy customer journey. I'm sure over the coming months we'll see more done here to make it even easier to buy tickets from NRE.

This background, combined with the asinine "sold out" nonsense that you get with mandatory reservations is why they've gone down the route of making the """sold out""" journeys greyed out/disabled. You wouldn't be able to buy tickets for them, so for you as a visitor, there's surely no reason to pay them any more attention.

 

[modernrail]

It's not a good reason, but as far as I can tell it's as follows:

RDG desperately want NRE to be a more seamless avenue for buying tickets, handing over to their members (TOCs) for the fulfilment process. This means it's starting to be designed for ticket sales. It's not designed for looking up information about journeys.

The NRE re-design already made inroads to this goal by cutting out the pesky third-party retailer handovers and defaulting to the train operators that run the trains involved in the search with a streamlined Plan-Select-Buy customer journey. I'm sure over the coming months we'll see more done here to make it even easier to buy tickets from NRE.

This background, combined with the asinine "sold out" nonsense that you get with mandatory reservations is why they've gone down the route of making the """sold out""" journeys greyed out/disabled. You wouldn't be able to buy tickets for them, so for you as a visitor, there's surely no reason to pay them any more attention.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes depressing sense. Ludicrous in the extreme.

Is this some sort of pathetic rear guard action against Trainline? In which case, the mind boggles. RDG attempt to re-house horse after their stupid fragmented approach to ticket buying has well and truly bolted.

Makes my blood boil actually. Now we have a self-proclaimed official information portal that is completely unable to perform that task and is instead focussed on sending passengers to the highly and completely pointlessly duplicated TOC ticket purchasing.

Guess what…. People are just going to use Trainline.

You really do have to wonder what standard and quality of decision making exists within these organisations. Bloody glad they were not in charge of D-Day.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Thanks for the explanation. Makes depressing sense. Ludicrous in the extreme.

Is this some sort of pathetic rear guard action against Trainline? In which case, the mind boggles. RDG attempt to re-house horse after their stupid fragmented approach to ticket buying has well and truly bolted.

Makes my blood boil actually. Now we have a self-proclaimed official information portal that is completely unable to perform that task and is instead focussed on sending passengers to the highly and completely pointlessly duplicated TOC ticket purchasing.

Guess what…. People are just going to use Trainline.

You really do have to wonder what standard and quality of decision making exists within these organisations. Bloody glad they were not in charge of D-Day.

But trainline run many of the TOC websites anyway. If you think they're trying to do away with trainline, they're not.

But many people found the previous buying experience tedious, so trying to improve it is a good thing.

The number of people using NRE is small. But certainly feed back to them rather than moaning to randoms on an Internet forum. I've raised things with Trainline and they've changed them. If they don't know, they won't change anything.

 

[Bantamzen]

If you are not the official spokesperson why are you writing as such?

This is a discussion forum. It is not for
you to direct those discussing what they should or should not do next, nor to be the final arbiter of whether the new National Rail website is or is not adequate.

Your view is that it is. The view of many others is that it is not.

You have also failed to give one single good reason why useful (and many would say critical) functionality has been removed when it doesn’t need to have been, which is a bit weird bearing in mind that is the point is being discussed.

So, what are the good reasons why that functionality has been removed, in your opinion (if you don’t work on it)?

I actually did suggest a reason why the functionality may have been removed upthread:

The thing is most people do use the site to see what prices are available for their journey, and once bought they don't use it to check the progress of it. Which is maybe why it doesn't have the functionality you wish, perhaps it was even removed because it caused confusion for people buying tickets through it? This is why other alternatives are available and have been suggested to you.

Which it seems might be plausible if the site redesign focussed more on buying tickets than tracking journeys, which is also what I suggested most people (by which I mean the general public and not just members of these forums) use the site for. And posters above seem to be also suggesting that a focus on buying tickets is the driver, so this is a likely reason.

 

[yorksrob]

It's not a good reason, but as far as I can tell it's as follows:

RDG desperately want NRE to be a more seamless avenue for buying tickets, handing over to their members (TOCs) for the fulfilment process. This means it's starting to be designed for ticket sales. It's not designed for looking up information about journeys.

The NRE re-design already made inroads to this goal by cutting out the pesky third-party retailer handovers and defaulting to the train operators that run the trains involved in the search with a streamlined Plan-Select-Buy customer journey. I'm sure over the coming months we'll see more done here to make it even easier to buy tickets from NRE.

This background, combined with the asinine "sold out" nonsense that you get with mandatory reservations is why they've gone down the route of making the """sold out""" journeys greyed out/disabled. You wouldn't be able to buy tickets for them, so for you as a visitor, there's surely no reason to pay them any more attention.

It's still not good enough. Another case of the industry designing itself around its own convenience, rather than the needs of passengers.

 

[Rail101]

Not sure why but lately the NRE app (I do mean the app) has been really bad. You can't look up journeys in advance even on the journey planner, it just defaults to 'today' and the current time, for the return journey it adds two hours and you can't change it so you have to manually hit the button to scroll.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling only to find the same problem plus if you don't allow it to access your precise location it is completely unresponsive. I don't understand why this has happened but it's incredibly annoying.

I'm using an android phone if it helps

 

[TheLancsNinja]

Not sure why but lately the NRE app (I do mean the app) has been really bad. You can't look up journeys in advance even on the journey planner, it just defaults to 'today' and the current time, for the return journey it adds two hours and you can't change it so you have to manually hit the button to scroll.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling only to find the same problem plus if you don't allow it to access your precise location it is completely unresponsive. I don't understand why this has happened but it's incredibly annoying.

I'm using an android phone if it helps

Not just an isolated case, I am having the same issue. The interface is clunky anyway, but this one makes it basically unusable for anything other than right here, right now enquiries. I tried to look in the app for a portal or contact details to submit a bug report but had no luck. An overhaul is overdue, if nothing to make it look and work a bit slicker.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Just out of interest, why do people use National Rail app? It never occurs to me to use it, and everyone always moans about it and it won't sell you tickets, so I'm just interested why people use it?

 

[josh-j]

I used to use it all the time to check train times and so on. I had a paper season ticket so no real need to bother with any particular operator's app of the day and NRE is the obvious first point of call.

These days I don't use it, mainly because the messed up aspect ratio the UI has on my phone annoys me, along with generally a lot of bugs and random crashes that put me off it.

I think it's fair to say that it needs some love.

 

[TJM]

Just out of interest, why do people use National Rail app? It never occurs to me to use it, and everyone always moans about it and it won't sell you tickets, so I'm just interested why people use it?

Because it gives accurate permitted connection times (unlike Google Maps for instance), and permitted alternative routes in the case of disruption, along with an explanation of the cause. You can no longer search for tickets any later than today though, which is maddening!