Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
If buses are being diverted for a single day, should users of journey planners expect to see those diversions and timetable modifications reflected in the answers to queries they make?
I've just had a discussion with my local bus company about a one-day road closure on Saturday.
The council confirm a complete road closure in the next village to mine, with no provision for buses to come through. Having seen no signage on stops, nothing on the operator's website, and with journey planners showing normal running, I called the operator. They will still run the service, but leave out our two villages, reckoning to keep the rest of the service to time with faster main-road running despite the longer mileage.
I asked: were they updating their feed into the journey planners? No. Did they normally do this for short-term changes? No.
I was disappointed to learn this: it rather undermines my confidence in journey planners. Am I expecting too much, or should the changes have been uploaded?
Well... Derbyshire County Council and Stagecoach Yorkshire in Chesterfield are often absolutely abysmal at notifying people of diversions to bus services.
For example: here's a case from November last year. Sheffield road was closed southbound in part to facilitate gas works. Buses were diverted up Newbold as shown here:
The blue circle is Stagecoach's depot in Stonegravels. Driver changes occur here, so the bus had to do a run up to Newbold, then back on itself, round some tight corners and up to the depot.
The icing on the cake? NOTHING was communicated other than some laminated paper signs tied to the bus stops. Nothing online about missing an entire stretch of Sheffield Road and potentially adding upwards of 15 minutes to the journey time of already Ferrari-inspired timetables.
I must add that as of late, Chesterfield last-minute service disruptions are now being posted to their twitter (X) account. Thank heavens...
If buses are being diverted for a single day, should users of journey planners expect to see those diversions and timetable modifications reflected in the answers to queries they make?
I've just had a discussion with my local bus company about a one-day road closure on Saturday.
The council confirm a complete road closure in the next village to mine, with no provision for buses to come through. Having seen no signage on stops, nothing on the operator's website, and with journey planners showing normal running, I called the operator. They will still run the service, but leave out our two villages, reckoning to keep the rest of the service to time with faster main-road running despite the longer mileage.
I asked: were they updating their feed into the journey planners? No. Did they normally do this for short-term changes? No.
I was disappointed to learn this: it rather undermines my confidence in journey planners. Am I expecting too much, or should the changes have been uploaded?
With the systems I am familiar with, data is only updated once a week. Further, roadworks often don't adhere to their original schedules, with delayed starts meaning diversions are not brought into operation, or more commonly, extend beyond their originally scheduled end date. At the moment, Twitter/X and website updates are an easier way of delivering instant information for this situation - note that the railway struggles to deliver the same, despite only having around 2570 stops, or about half the number of bus stops in my home county alone.
With the systems I am familiar with, data is only updated once a week. Further, roadworks often don't adhere to their original schedules, with delayed starts meaning diversions are not brought into operation, or more commonly, extend beyond their originally scheduled end date. At the moment, Twitter/X and website updates are an easier way of delivering instant information for this situation - note that the railway struggles to deliver the same, despite only having around 2570 stops, or about half the number of bus stops in my home county alone.
Yes I agree. Data uploaded once a week normally on a Monday. Website and Facebook of my local operator normally detail known diversions. I only too well remember road works notified then not starting, over running, finishing early, then there are the emergencies.
With the systems I am familiar with, data is only updated once a week. Further, roadworks often don't adhere to their original schedules, with delayed starts meaning diversions are not brought into operation, or more commonly, extend beyond their originally scheduled end date. At the moment, Twitter/X and website updates are an easier way of delivering instant information for this situation - note that the railway struggles to deliver the same, despite only having around 2570 stops, or about half the number of bus stops in my home county alone.
This is the issue; the bus company often doesn't know how long a diversion will be in place for. I think for anything up to a week, leave the journey planner as it is. Place a banner on the company website highlighting that there is disruption to services and make sure that everything is detailed on a service updates page, while making sure that this information is also mirrorred on the company's app. Facebook/Twitter and other social media are good ways of getting the information out, but they should not be solely relied upon to get the message out.
If buses are being diverted for a single day, should users of journey planners expect to see those diversions and timetable modifications reflected in the answers to queries they make?
I've just had a discussion with my local bus company about a one-day road closure on Saturday.
The council confirm a complete road closure in the next village to mine, with no provision for buses to come through. Having seen no signage on stops, nothing on the operator's website, and with journey planners showing normal running, I called the operator. They will still run the service, but leave out our two villages, reckoning to keep the rest of the service to time with faster main-road running despite the longer mileage.
I asked: were they updating their feed into the journey planners? No. Did they normally do this for short-term changes? No.
I was disappointed to learn this: it rather undermines my confidence in journey planners. Am I expecting too much, or should the changes have been uploaded?
In terms of uploading new timetables, it depends how temporary it is. I think the general rule is that if the diversion is on for longer than 6 weeks it should be registered with the Traffic Commission (and therefore should really end up with changes showing on operators websites, open data, and Traveline etc).
For less than 6 weeks, I don't think there is any obligation to rereigster and so yes it goes more unnoticed.
There is however a handy tool from the DFT called 'Create Transport Disruption Data Service'. Not a catchy name but it's self explanatory. Local authorities add disruptions to this system and this can then feed out to journey planners via Bus Open Data (Link goes to the section of Bus Open data). Upto now, the DFT have basically released it and said it's 'there if you want it' and so some local authorities and operators don't even know it exists.
Currently only 7 authorities contribute to this system and the extent at which they contribute varies. Merseytravel & TFGM are pretty much live updates and report delays in the city. Cornwall and North Lincs are mostly just add pre planned road closures. London does release disruption data but does so via it's own open data. Essentially, then data users (predominantly journey planners) can give you a big popup to say that your journey may be affected.
Screenshot shows bustimes.org with the route title, next line shows the operator then directly below that is the disruption notice.
The issue with the disruption data service is that it's stuck in a bit of a vicious circle. Not many places use the data from it and not many people have any intention of using it. Speaking with Passenger for example (Who host websites and apps for some operators) at Euro Bus Expo and they said they have no plans to use it because they 'don't trust the data quality' (meaning despite Cornwall Council contributing, the Transport for Cornwall site doesn't take in the data so it's just a whole load of double data entry).
Because not many companies use the data, councils have less reason and less requests to contribute to the system.
Less councils contribute, there is less incentive or reason for data users to use the data. Rinse and repeat. Bar bustimes.org, I am not aware of anyone taking data from the DFTs disruption data service for use on journey planners etc.
While the disruption data service will likely never provide enough information for journey planners to reroute you, it will likely provide a popup to say 'here is an issue, this is your solution'. It is a big step in the right direction though.
Hopefully if more authorities and more data users get onboard with this system, it will lead to more, and improved, disruption information for passengers.
If buses are being diverted for a single day, should users of journey planners expect to see those diversions and timetable modifications reflected in the answers to queries they make?
I've just had a discussion with my local bus company about a one-day road closure on Saturday.
The council confirm a complete road closure in the next village to mine, with no provision for buses to come through. Having seen no signage on stops, nothing on the operator's website, and with journey planners showing normal running, I called the operator. They will still run the service, but leave out our two villages, reckoning to keep the rest of the service to time with faster main-road running despite the longer mileage.
I asked: were they updating their feed into the journey planners? No. Did they normally do this for short-term changes? No.
I was disappointed to learn this: it rather undermines my confidence in journey planners. Am I expecting too much, or should the changes have been uploaded?
Not quite the same, but Brighton and Hove, do routinely update the timetables for single day disruption, both online with timetables etc and on bus. - Examples off the top of my head include the London to Brighton Cycle Ride and Brighton Pride .
It seems to work really well, but they are massive events that significantly impact the bus service for the day.
If buses are being diverted for a single day, should users of journey planners expect to see those diversions and timetable modifications reflected in the answers to queries they make?
I've just had a discussion with my local bus company about a one-day road closure on Saturday.
The council confirm a complete road closure in the next village to mine, with no provision for buses to come through. Having seen no signage on stops, nothing on the operator's website, and with journey planners showing normal running, I called the operator. They will still run the service, but leave out our two villages, reckoning to keep the rest of the service to time with faster main-road running despite the longer mileage.
I asked: were they updating their feed into the journey planners? No. Did they normally do this for short-term changes? No.
I was disappointed to learn this: it rather undermines my confidence in journey planners. Am I expecting too much, or should the changes have been uploaded?
Not a chance - given the amount of work that it would take to produce temporary timetables, put them into the appropriate export formats and upload them into the appropriate systems, for a larger bus company that would be practically a full time job in itself!
And then there's the fluidity of road closures - so many don't start when they are meant to start. All it takes is for a period of wet weather, or for contractors to be delayed on their previous job. This is why a Traffic Regulation Order is always for 18 months - it allows for dates to be changed or extended in the event of an issue. So the data could be uploaded, then has to be corrected to shift the temporary timetable to the new dates (and reversion to normal timetable).
It is just not worth the hassle for a one day closure. Even Traveline works on the basis of using a disruption message for two-three weeks, and data for anything longer (even the Traffic Commissioners won't take notice of anything so short).
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
