How

can open data revolu0onise your rail travel?

Jonathan Raper CEO, Placr

Outline
Revolu,onalising your rail travel means answering these ques,ons rst Who controls the railways? How is the industry structured? Who pays for the railways? Then we can drill down on the issues that ma@er How do we monitor punctuality? How do we get the cheapest fare? What are the cool new apps/services?

Your tax

Who controls the railways?

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 species 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-regula,on by ATOC Passenger Focus have inuence but no power The industry is fragmented and complex Very li@le informa,on escapes the industry Passengers are nihilis,c about system

Some tweets
Ahh #rstcapitalconnect - 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 Na,onal Rail Enquiries

NRE are a service of ATOC Set up to provide phone service at priva,sa,on Funded by TOCs, who are part-funded by taxes Developed organically to run a web/API service Un,l 2012 a monopoly supplier of all rail data Network Rail movement data now #opendata NRE s,ll exclusively collect opera,ng data from TOCS that enhances its feeds NRE license rail data @ 1.50/app

Role of NRE in passenger info

What passengers want
Train ,mes for free on web and good value apps Fares info to get the cheapest ,cket(s) for journey Integrated transport op,ons

What NRE say their aims are (with some simplica,on)

to increase ,cket sales to grow our registered customer base to con,nue our dominance as the #1 web site in travel Improving speed, accuracy &availability of informa,on keep the cost of informa,on to ToCs down

Whats the solu,on?

Informa,on. Lots of it. From open sources. Arm the consumer and open up the industry:
Timetables to analyse service pa@erns Real ,me data to monitor delays Fares data to iden,fy savings eg fare spliing Integra,on with other transport data eg bus

Developers can help with this cant they? Placr created h@p://transportapi.com/ for this

NR train movement feeds

003-moves{"event_type": "ARRIVAL,"gb@_,mestamp: "1358780700000","original_loc_stanox": ","planned_,mestamp":"1358780700000",",metable_varia,on":"0","original_loc_,mestamp":"", "current_train_id":"","delay_monitoring_point":"false","next_report_run_,me":"1","repor,ng_st anox":"00000","actual_,mestamp":"1358780700000","correc,on_ind":"false","event_source":"A UTOMATIC","train_le_address":null,"planorm":"","division_code":"60","train_terminated":"false ","train_id":"072G54MP21","oroute_ind":"false","varia,on_status":"ONTIME","train_service_co de":"13569815","toc_id":"60","loc_stanox":"07132","auto_expected":"true","direc,on_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-cancella0ons 25739787 | 0002 | 561d0540-ee1e-012f-9605-00163e000001 | 632O31MY21 | {"train_le_address":null,"train_service_code":"22710001","orig_loc_stanox":"","toc_id":"26","de p_,mestamp":"1358796120000","division_code":"26","loc_stanox":"63201","canx_,mestamp":"1 358849100000","canx_reason_code":"YI","train_id":"632O31MY21","orig_loc_,mestamp":"","can x_type":"AT ORIGIN"} | 2013-01-22 10:06:05 | 2013-01-22 10:06:05 001-ac0va0ons 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 consump,on of stream and cross-

TransportAPI architecture
Raw data Feeds
Real-time

Maps Cache Joins Data tables

Geolocate

Cloud servers

Lookups Keys API Stop/station data

App

Displays Content Processing ` App logic

Updating

transportapi gallery

What do we want now?

Ini,al data releases have enabled us to start up services eg feeds for CityMapper >>> Level playing eld for businesses Liberalised data market Open data driven innova,on Open fare data expected soon

Level playing eld

Access to the rest of industry data streams:
Short term cancella,ons etc Tyrell Rolling stock forma,on etc Gemini Cycle policies

Full details be@er enable us to launch informa,ve 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 spliing. Double the journey ,me at a third of the price. Not an op,on on Nat Rail Enqs @Madprof

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

Open data innova,on

Need to enable new insights, build condence e.g. OpenTrainTimes map visualisa,on New ways to view performance measures

Prototype open train ,mes

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. h@p://tube-radar.com/

Apps as probes
Smartphones can use apps as probes for
Train progress Accelera,on/decelera,on via phone sensors

Can check publicity claims

Train lateness map

transportapi.com

Fares
Fares are about to be released as open data by Rail Se@lement plan Will become possible to mine the data New role of informa,on facilitators to fare portals

In summary
Open data can drive
Accountability Reduc,ons in cost Disrup,ve market inuences

Placr hope to play a key role with

New apps/services Easy data distribu,on New value-added feeds

Contact
h@p://www.placr.co.uk/ jonathan.raper@placr.co.uk @Madprof