How can open data revolutionise your rail travel?

Jonathan RaperCEO, Placr

OutlineRevolutionalising your rail travel means answering

these questions first…• Who controls the railways?• How is the industry structured?• Who pays for the railways?Then we can drill down on the issues that matter… • How do we monitor punctuality?• How do we get the cheapest fare?• What are the cool new apps/services?

Who controls the railways?Your tax

Your fares

Courtesy: Network Rail

How is the industry structured?

How are the railways funded?

• “Network Rail… operates, maintains, renews and develops the infrastructure to deliver the outputs that governments.. wish to buy” ORR

• High Level Output Spec is what government buys• “Delivering a Sustainable Railway 2007” specifies

service levels etc that will be funded CP4 09-14• Periodic Review 08 by ORR matched task & funds

– Next PR this year for CP5

• NR also borrows for capital investment

The governance problem for railways

• DfT only buys services at a high level• Almost all ToCs are monopolies on each line• ORR tolerates self-regulation by ATOC• Passenger Focus have influence but no power• The industry is fragmented and complex• Very little information escapes the industry• Passengers are nihilistic about system

Some tweets

• Ahh #firstcapitalconnect - trains appear on the KingsX board but it doesn't mean the train exists - silly me [@JerryMarwood]

• @FirstCC We all know Ally is a robot. Automated answers heh heh [@penaltyfare]

• @FirstCC I used to get the 909 from letchworth and it always arrived at 912 so FCC cleverly made that train the 912 but then arrived at 914 [@tumsguide]

Role of National Rail Enquiries• NRE are a service of ATOC• Set up to provide phone service at privatisation• Funded by TOCs, who are part-funded by taxes• Developed organically to run a web/API service• Until 2012 a monopoly supplier of all rail data• Network Rail movement data now #opendata• NRE still exclusively collect operating data from

TOCS that enhances its feeds• NRE license rail data @ £1.50/app

Role of NRE in passenger info• What passengers want

– Train times for free on web and good value apps– Fares info to get the cheapest ticket(s) for journey– Integrated transport options

• What NRE say their aims are (with some simplification)

– “to increase ticket sales– to grow our registered customer base– to continue our dominance as the #1 web site in travel– Improving speed, accuracy &availability of information– keep the cost of information to ToCs down”

What’s the solution?

• Information. Lots of it. From open sources.• Arm the consumer… and open up the industry:

– Timetables to analyse service patterns– Real time data to monitor delays– Fares data to identify savings eg fare splitting– Integration with other transport data eg bus

• Developers can help with this… can’t they?• Placr created http://transportapi.com/ for this

NR train movement feeds• 003-moves{"event_type": "ARRIVAL”,"gbtt_timestamp”: "1358780700000","original_loc_stanox":”

","planned_timestamp":"1358780700000","timetable_variation":"0","original_loc_timestamp":"","current_train_id":"","delay_monitoring_point":"false","next_report_run_time":"1","reporting_stanox":"00000","actual_timestamp":"1358780700000","correction_ind":"false","event_source":"AUTOMATIC","train_file_address":null,"platform":"","division_code":"60","train_terminated":"false","train_id":"072G54MP21","offroute_ind":"false","variation_status":"ONTIME","train_service_code":"13569815","toc_id":"60","loc_stanox":"07132","auto_expected":"true","direction_ind":"UP","route":"0","planned_event_type":"ARRIVAL","next_report_stanox":"07136","line_ind":""} | 2013-01-21 15:04:09 | 2013-01-21 15:04:09

• 002-cancellations 25739787 | 0002 | 561d0540-ee1e-012f-9605-00163e000001 | 632O31MY21 | {"train_file_address":null,"train_service_code":"22710001","orig_loc_stanox":"","toc_id":"26","dep_timestamp":"1358796120000","division_code":"26","loc_stanox":"63201","canx_timestamp":"1358849100000","canx_reason_code":"YI","train_id":"632O31MY21","orig_loc_timestamp":"","canx_type":"AT ORIGIN"} | 2013-01-22 10:06:05 | 2013-01-22 10:06:05

• 001-activations 1679921 | 0001 | C | | 2013-12-06 | 321A42MO21 | 2013-01-21 | 2013-01-21 11:05:15 | | 2013-01-21 14:15:00 | 22108001 | 65 | 00000 | MANUAL | P50657 | NORMAL | O | 32000 | 1A42M | 2012-12-10 | 1415 | 38260220-ee20-012f-9605-00163e000001 | MANCHESTER PICCADILLY | LONDON EUSTON | VT | 2013-01-21 11:05:19 | 2013-01-21 11:05:19

• Requires high-speed consumption of stream and cross-referencing with reference sources

`̀

Feeds

Cache

Stop/station data

JoinsData

tables

API

Applogic

Updating

Lookups

Content

Displays

Maps

Geolocate

Keys

App

Processing

TransportAPI architecture

Real-time

Cloud servers

Raw dataRaw data

transportapi gallery

What do we want now?

• Initial data releases have enabled us to start up services eg feeds for CityMapper >>>

• Level playing field for businesses• Liberalised data market• Open data driven innovation• Open fare data expected soon

Level playing field

• Access to the rest of industry data streams:– Short term cancellations etc Tyrell– Rolling stock formation etc Gemini– Cycle policies

• Full details better enable us to launch informative apps about your travel

Liberalised market

• Open up commercial interface to new approaches to the market– “Liverpool-London by train on a Friday night. Fare

splitting. Double the journey time at a third of the price. Not an option on Nat Rail Enqs @Madprof

• Enable innovators to find the best deals and reliable services for your journey, and then fulfill their order without onerous T&Cs

Open data innovation

• Need to enable new insights, build confidence e.g. OpenTrainTimes map visualisation

• New ways to view performance measures

Prototype open train times

FixMyTransport

New metrics from apps

• Apps will create independent streams of data about the railway– Typical performance cf

expected performance

• Placr already been asked by press to give independent view of performance e.g. http://tube-radar.com/

Apps as probes

• Smartphones can use apps as probes for– Train progress– Acceleration/deceleration

via phone sensors

• Can check publicity claims

Train lateness maptransportapi.com

Fares

• Fares are about to be released as open data by Rail Settlement plan

• Will become possible to mine the data

• New role of information facilitators to fare portals

In summary

• Open data can drive– Accountability– Reductions in cost– Disruptive market influences

• Placr hope to play a key role with– New apps/services– Easy data distribution– New value-added feeds

Contact

http://www.placr.co.uk/jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk@Madprof