The Tube Timetable

[Inclusive Apps]

Hi Tube Users, I'm developing a new way of looking at a timetable on your phone - this app will also show up to the minute information regarding delays and works on the line. Is this the right place to come to recruit a few testers to ensure the app works correctly?

 

[henryb]

What makes this different from any other app?

 

[Mattplans]

Well OP says it's a timetable, not a countdown (which is the commonly available service on many apps).

Not aware of many apps that share the timetable itself. But for good reason, by the time you're timetable app has loaded, for the vast majority of the network, a train has probably already turned up.

Not even TfL Go did that (last time I used it). The general TfL policy seems to be to advertise the first time and last time of trains and everything in the middle as every x minutes.

 

[3rd rail land]

Hi Tube Users, I'm developing a new way of looking at a timetable on your phone - this app will also show up to the minute information regarding delays and works on the line. Is this the right place to come to recruit a few testers to ensure the app works correctly?

Have you identified a demand for an app with a full timetable? For the vast majority of people there is no need to see a timetable given the frequency of the most of the London Underground.

I suspect people would find information about delays or line closures useful but there are plenty of places to get this information already. To be brutally honest I can't see a meaningful benefit of such an app as you are proposing.

 

[Mojo]

There are definitely large sections of the Underground network where a timetable is useful, on the Bakerloo north of Queens Park, on the Central west of North Acton and east of Woodford/Hainault, the Richmond and Ealing branches of the District, the Mill Hill East branch, the Circle, the H&C, the Uxbridge branch of the Picc, and north of Harrow on the Met come to mind.

It would be great somehow to take the set numbers from the WTT and combine this with realtime information to produce an app that would be able to tell me that, for example train 440 the 19:35 from Watford has been cancelled. Given the limitations of data which power the APIs (especially at the start of the day), I’m not sure how this could reliably be accomplished.

 

[bluegoblin7]

Linking into the above, any app would also want to be cognoscent that whilst 440 is cancelled, 441 has actually been diverted to cover the Watford gap and will be departing at 1935 to Watford...

 

[boiledbeans2]

The Met probably needs a timetable app the most. None of the platform indicator displays north of (and including) Harrow work properly.
The Harrow-on-the Hill NB indicator would display "Amersham 21 min", then 2 minutes later, drop to "Amersham 7 min", then another 2 minutes later, a Watford train arrives.

It's even worse at Uxbridge where no indicator exist. While entering the station, I see a Met train on the platform. Is it alright if I walk to it at a normal pace? Or should I run? Don't know. No countdown departure time.

 

[Mike99]

I think you should, go ahead and do it. Plenty of people will tell you when it is complete and been viewed their opinion. Good on you for trying. For some of us old school folk, we might like to use the working time timetables that are on the TfL site which are fine. Something new will be good as well in my opinion.

 

[paul332]

That's exactly how the good old maroon timetable books were structured. Frequencies for the central areas, actual times for principal outlying stations, and full timetables for the Met and the Central extremities. The Met timetable included British Railways from Marylebone to Woodford Halse (in my 1957 edition), but I suppose Aylesbury Parkway would suffice for the time being, until Chiltern/GBR get to Milton Keynes.

 

[Metrider]

It's even worse at Uxbridge where no indicator exist. While entering the station, I see a Met train on the platform. Is it alright if I walk to it at a normal pace? Or should I run? Don't know. No countdown departure time.

Many times I've sprinted and jumped in the first available door, only to then sit there like a berk while it doesn't depart for another ten minutes!

 

[Route115?]

I checked tubestatus on my smartphone yesterday as I wanted to travel from Northwick Park to Ickenham. It showed 23 minutes to the second train (I wouldn't have been able to get to the first one in time) but it was shown as between Finchley Rd & Wembley Park so I would have expected it to arrive sooner. I was correct in this. Wembley Park was showing an Uxbridge train due in 7 minutes, so 16 mins between Wembley Pk & Northwick Pk. Hopefully not! Presumably tubestatus is relaying incorrect information that it is receiving.

Totally agree with the comments about Uxbridge.

 

[splashoutradio]

For those that are interested in tube timetables, TfL publish the official working timetables for main timing points on all lines. Obviously these are planned timings, so don't account for engineering works or delays - https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables

There are also passenger timetables for all stations & lines at https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/timetables/tfl/