Time to rename the "BBC Studios" bus stops in Cardiff?

[markymark2000]

And there lies the problems with the entire system. It is too complicated and is a 'bolt on' to many downstream systems which requires updating / downloading of files for which neither the Local Authority or the Bus Operatos have staff resources (both in quantity and quality) to do the work.

It wouldn't be so bad if everyone just relied upon the database as it is. Instead, everyone uses Naptan as a starting point then adds all the overrides on. That is what makes it messy. If operators just kept pushing authorities to sort out Naptan, or if some authorities weren't so daft (see earlier issues with Leicester), then operators wouldn't have gotten into the swing of constantly doing overrides.

Combine that with DFT now making it not compulsory to send modification dates/times on the naptan entries, makes it even harder for operators to know when an entry has been updated to then act on it. That said, Bustimes has a Github thing which shows all of the Naptan changes by scraping (https://github.com/bustimes/scrapings/commits/main/) and I use this a LOT. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Many stops are in the database but their digital co-ordinates are not quite in the right place.

In my county of residence (with 3.5k Naptan stops + an unknown quantity of stops not in Naptan) there is one person (office bound) who does Naptan, plus a whole host of other jobs. Keeping the database 'up to date' relies entirely on reports of issues / out of date names / new bus stops at new developments / etc. from members of the public, bus operator staff, or some other event bring it to attention. There is nobody available to go around specifically looking for these things. As for stop names - don't even get me going on that subject. With the current level of resource available only the glaring historic names are likely to get changed, probably years after they have become extinct.

I think the thing is, there are people who are making these issues known to local authorities. It's the fact that these reports then keep being ignored, or the can is kicked very far down the road as the authority staff want the original person to forget about the issue, or in the end authority silliness (to put it politely) is taking over and creating less than ideal situations (see the Leicester issue above).

 

[820KDV]

Coming a bit late to this, and I'm far from happy with the state of NaPTAN data at my work place, especially some of the precise locations, but hopefully we get a few things right.

We recently had a change of operator on some tendered services, and the new team were very keen to update a few stop names, while questioning a few more. Awkward ones where the name isn't obvious, but known to all the locals. We accepted most of their suggestions, they accepted the ones we said we wanted to keep when we explained.

Just last week a railway station forecourt reopened to buses after refurbishment, with departures now spread over 3 stops rather than 2 (in the original layout, and at the temporary location). I'm sure that there there would have been a few hours from start of service until the switch-over where the data was wrong, but as soon as our local independent posted on their social media that the new stops had opened I checked BusTimes.org and all the services were showing at the 3 new stops. The feed to our real-time website was correct (no actual displays yet as the legal paperwork for council displays on railway land is more complex than anyone could imagine). There even a ghost 4th stop for buses only going two more stops to the bus station; done so they can drop off wherever they find a gap at that moment (there are plenty of departures to the bus station from the actual stops, where buses begin so are usually there available to board, although most people would walk, and a number of the incoming journeys are set down on request, so better not shown).

As I say, the state of our data frustrates me, it is rather a laborious process to get things changed (best down looking over the shoulder of the person in putting the data to get the best possible location recorded) but we're not based in the same office and emailing maps and hoping they interpret things correctly isn't great. But as I hope the above shows we try, and we have though just appointed someone on a short term contract to try to correct our data - somewhere in the region of 4,700 locations.

 

[RT4038]

I think the thing is, there are people who are making these issues known to local authorities. It's the fact that these reports then keep being ignored, or the can is kicked very far down the road as the authority staff want the original person to forget about the issue, or in the end authority silliness (to put it politely) is taking over and creating less than ideal situations (see the Leicester issue above).

There are, I think, 75 LTA (Local Transport Authorities) in England. I am unsure if they all do Naptan for their areas. Some LTAs will be quite small and have little expertise and even less resource to deal with Naptan. I am sure there will be LTAs that are terrible with it, and some that are really good. I can only draw on the experience of my LTA of residence - 3,600 Naptan stops + some others. One person dealing with it who is only allocated a small proportion of their time on Naptan. I am unaware of any outstanding issues reported but not actioned; however, if a list was sent in by a member of the public or even an operator it would take quite some time for the changes to be verified and actioned - no doubt they would be prioritised as to which were important and which are not so.

I am sure you are quite right that some LTA staff are disinterested and/or do not understand the importance of it - quite likely they are not bus users and therefore do not experience the issues caused themselves. In some LTAs there is simply not the resource or the expertise or the funding. However, not all LTAs and their staff can be tarnished with the same brush.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

In Newcastle, there’s still a bus stop for Tyne Tees, which closed and was demolished in 2010

I haven't seen it on a physical stop flag, but printed on a Yorkshire Tiger timetable from when they were running the Leeds Bradford Airport services was Yorkshire Television which is still going as ITV Yorkshire.

 

[markymark2000]

Just last week a railway station forecourt reopened to buses after refurbishment, with departures now spread over 3 stops rather than 2 (in the original layout, and at the temporary location). I'm sure that there there would have been a few hours from start of service until the switch-over where the data was wrong, but as soon as our local independent posted on their social media that the new stops had opened I checked BusTimes.org and all the services were showing at the 3 new stops. The feed to our real-time website was correct (no actual displays yet as the legal paperwork for council displays on railway land is more complex than anyone could imagine). There even a ghost 4th stop for buses only going two more stops to the bus station; done so they can drop off wherever they find a gap at that moment.

Bustimes tends to update Naptan and timetable information daily, if not twice daily depending on the source, so it does try to be as accurate as possible, as long as the source data is correct. In your instance where routes have changed from 2 stops up to 3, it would rely upon both Naptan and route data updating, which in this case thankfully seems to have worked out. The ghost 4th stop needn't exist though and the routes should just be linked to one of the other stops with relevant set down only restrictions used. Any real time information on your website or stop displays should be clever enough to ignore routes/trips which have a set down only restriction.

But as I hope the above shows we try, and we have though just appointed someone on a short term contract to try to correct our data - somewhere in the region of 4,700 locations.

That is very good to hear. The area that I believe you cover (based on the information you have shared) does seem to have a lot of ongoing data issues and has long been one of the areas in need of much attention in my experience.

I am unaware of any outstanding issues reported but not actioned; however, if a list was sent in by a member of the public or even an operator it would take quite some time for the changes to be verified and actioned - no doubt they would be prioritised as to which were important and which are not so.

I know someone who has a full list on the go for many LTAs with issues. As of the last copy of the spreadsheet that I saw, there were 67 authorities in England with at least 1 issue. Some LAs only a few issues, and that goes up to authorities with 50+ errors, and tops out at Shropshire with 100+ errors and that was just the errors that could be found easily without any intensive searching.

There are, I think, 75 LTA (Local Transport Authorities) in England. I am unsure if they all do Naptan for their areas. Some LTAs will be quite small and have little expertise and even less resource to deal with Naptan. I am sure there will be LTAs that are terrible with it, and some that are really good. I can only draw on the experience of my LTA of residence - 3,600 Naptan stops + some others. One person dealing with it who is only allocated a small proportion of their time on Naptan.

I am sure you are quite right that some LTA staff are disinterested and/or do not understand the importance of it - quite likely they are not bus users and therefore do not experience the issues caused themselves. In some LTAs there is simply not the resource or the expertise or the funding. However, not all LTAs and their staff can be tarnished with the same brush.

I fully agree. There are some excellent ones which fix issues quite quickly. I hear of good things about Cumbria, TFGM and Plymouth fixing issues swiftly when they have been reported.
There are also others taking an absurd amount of time to fix anything. Some due to lack of expertise, or others due to lack of software. Windsor and Maidenhead said on a public Naptan meeting (it's on Youtube but I can't remember the specific meeting it was mentioned) that they don't have any system at all for updating Naptan and for a while they were relying upon good will of another authority to keep things updated. Shropshire has been outed too for them manually editing the xml file for Naptan rather than having any proper software too (which given Naptan is now a statutory obligation, it is rather poor). There are also a good few who do just blatantly bury their heads in the sand and even if they fix other issues, still don't fix the reported issues.