BBC Red Button Service Giving Wrong Information.

Envoy · 16 Aug 2019

On BBC 1 & 2 (Freeview) we have a Red Button Information Service. Rail delays appears under ‘Travel'. Yesterday, it said that services were not running westbound between Bridgend & Swansea due to a broken down train. Today, it still says the same thing yet, when I checked with Real Time Trains, all appears well. Seems to me that the people who update this information are not doing their job?

RailUK Forums

Master29 · 16 Aug 2019

Envoy said:
On BBC 1 & 2 (Freeview) we have a Red Button Information Service. Rail delays appears under ‘Travel'. Yesterday, it said that services were not running westbound between Bridgend & Swansea due to a broken down train. Today, it still says the same thing yet, when I checked with Real Time Trains, all appears well. Seems to me that the people who update this information are not doing their job?

I wouldn`t rely on them for anything.

PHILIPE · 16 Aug 2019

Envoy said:
On BBC 1 & 2 (Freeview) we have a Red Button Information Service. Rail delays appears under ‘Travel'. Yesterday, it said that services were not running westbound between Bridgend & Swansea due to a broken down train. Today, it still says the same thing yet, when I checked with Real Time Trains, all appears well. Seems to me that the people who update this information are not doing their job?

I don't know what time this was but today 2B61 1112 Cardiff Cen to Llanelli failed at Pyle and terminated Port Talbot 81 Late. I recall a few months ago BBC Travel was indicating that two routes were closed due Engineering Work giving the impression they were closed all day but it was merely a case of a couple of services affected due to an overnight possession. I Tweeted TFW and they seemed to be at a loss as to what to do, There was a failure round about tea time yeterday

Steve Harris · 16 Aug 2019

Envoy said:
On BBC 1 & 2 (Freeview) we have a Red Button Information Service. Rail delays appears under ‘Travel'. Yesterday, it said that services were not running westbound between Bridgend & Swansea due to a broken down train. Today, it still says the same thing yet, when I checked with Real Time Trains, all appears well. Seems to me that the people who update this information are not doing their job?

I would say the best thing to do is either write /email your local BBC office or contact "Points of View" (which is the BBC's own complaints programme).
Personally I find all journalism slap dash nowadays, not just the BBC. The only way to improve it is by complaining/ educating them.

InOban · 16 Aug 2019

Surely the responsibility lies with the source of the data which drives the red button? I would be surprised if the information is inputted manually by a BBC employee.

Steve Harris · 16 Aug 2019

InOban said:
Surely the responsibility lies with the source of the data which drives the red button? I would be surprised if the information is inputted manually by a BBC employee.

Looking at the spelling mistakes and bad grammar I sometimes see on the Red Button /BBC News website, I can't see the content generated by anyone /anything other than a employee. (Even if it is AI generated, surely someone would be proof reading the content before its published?).

As to the point about only the source of the data being responsible. I don't buy it. If anything, both are responsible.

As the O.P. says, the BBC had incorrect information. Therefore, they would be the organisation to complain to. If they hadn't been upated by TfW or been given incorrect information, you would assume that the BBC would then complain to TfW.

That is normally the chain of events which happens in a professional, well organised and efficient organisation /company.

jimm · 16 Aug 2019

PhilipE has indicated that there was indeed a problem with a broken-down train today.

Realtimetrains clearly shows details of the service in question http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P76732/2019/08/16/advanced

It also shows at least other westbound trains were badly delayed

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P76470/2019/08/16/advanced
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C20169/2019/08/16/advanced

And GWR Journeycheck is currently carrying the note below under line updates, which may just be the source of the BBC's information.

So maybe, just maybe, there is no need to get quite so carried away about this and going on about Points of View.

Delays to services between Cardiff Central and Swansea

Following a broken down train between Cardiff Central and Swansea the line towards Swansea is now open.
Train services running to and from these stations are returning to normal but some services may still be delayed by up to 20 minutes. Disruption is expected until 15:00 16/08.
Further Information

If you hold a valid single, return, or weekly ticket, you will be able to claim compensation for delays of 15 minutes or more. Please keep your ticket and visit GWR.com/DelayRepay
Last Updated:16/08/2019 14:16

RichT54 · 16 Aug 2019

It's a waste of time contacting the BBC about the red button service. About three years ago they changed the way the Return button works, so I submitted a clear report asking them to revert it to the way it used to work. For their reply they sent advice on tuning my TV set! They obviously didn't read what I had sent, and had just used a stock copy/paste reply. I then received a "How did we do?" feedback request to which I responded, in no uncertain terms, that they had totally missed the point and their that reply had been useless.

Greg Read · 16 Aug 2019

Red Button for anything local...News / Travel is always way out of date, somne of the news items are there for days, RB nowhere near as good as the old CEEFAX / ORACLE

Steve Harris · 16 Aug 2019

jimm said:
Realtimetrains clearly shows deta just maybe, there is no need to get quite so carried away about this and going on about Points of View.

If you are referring to me, I was simply answering the O.P's question and giving him information as to whom he/she should complain to, if they so wished.

So, no carrying away as you put it. Frankly, right now in my state, I couldn't carry anything.

Steve Harris · 16 Aug 2019

RichT54 said:
It's a waste of time contacting the BBC about the red button service. About three years ago they changed the way the Return button works, so I submitted a clear report asking them to revert it to the way it used to work. For their reply they sent advice on tuning my TV set! They obviously didn't read what I had sent, and had just used a stock copy/paste reply. I then received a "How did we do?" feedback request to which I responded, in no uncertain terms, that they had totally missed the point and their that reply had been useless.

Unfortunately, that is the way of modern business. They only hear what They want to hear.

I'm having the same issue with Royal Mail right now.

Mathew S · 16 Aug 2019

The BBC traffic & travel team (and the service they provide) has been cut massively over the last few years. A victim of falling usage of the service, and the swinging budget cuts imposed on the organisation for political reasons.
You'll still get accurate - if selective - information in the local TV news opts during breakfast, on local radio, and to a limited extent also on Radio 2, but that's about it now.

duffield · 16 Aug 2019

The red button local news particularly is often seriously misleading; e.g. the second story on your local news for your town/city/area says something like 'all trains suspended between x and y', and the story does not contain any information about when it was posted or when the disruption occurred.
It turns out that it was yesterday and the trains are running normally now. The story is still high on the list because 'nothing significant' has happened since locally.
I know the BBC has had to cut back a lot of services for reasons outside its control, but if these stories at least contained a date/time of origin it would be a lot more obvious when they were stale!

jimm · 17 Aug 2019

Steve Harris said:
If you are referring to me, I was simply answering the O.P's question and giving him information as to whom he/she should complain to, if they so wished.

So, no carrying away as you put it. Frankly, right now in my state, I couldn't carry anything.

Yes, I was referring to you, because the original post made the following incorrect claim

all appears well

A statement that had already been contradicted before you posted.

Realtimetrains will have been showing that sequence of delayed trains before 13.34, when this thread was started. The GWR Journeycheck page - an official publicly-available source of rail service information - was also carrying a line update note about there having been delays to trains running from Cardiff to Swansea, while the TfW Journeycheck was showing alterations to some of its services which were stated to be the result of a broken-down train.

So the supposed failings of the red button service were, I would suggest, nothing of the sort, and there was no reason to complain to Points of View, or the BBC generally, on this occasion.

duffield said:
It turns out that it was yesterday and the trains are running normally now. The story is still high on the list because 'nothing significant' has happened since locally.

Did you actually bother to read my post or the one preceding it by PhilipE? Which noted that there was disruption today (as in Friday), and I included links to the logs of the trains caught up in it. Unless you consider trains being delayed by 60 minutes plus not to be significant.

extendedpaul · 17 Aug 2019

On Monday mornings when I look about 11am the rail travel page often still has references to weekend engineering line closures, which could be very misleading for an occasional traveller.

Back in the days of analogue Ceefax individual train delays and some cancellation were listed along with detailed flight arrivals . Updates were as iI recall also dated / timed. Very much cut back now.

JN114 · 17 Aug 2019

A company called INRIX provides travel information for dissemination by mainstream media outlets. When I was an info controller one of our duties during major disruption was to monitor their feed (which if I understand their end of process correctly the likes of BBC and local radio etc just scrape onto their own pages/broadcasts) was showing the correct information; and to call them to correct them if it were wrong.

Envoy · 17 Aug 2019

I agree, I think travel updates has been outsourced to a company called INRIX and they would be the ones who are not updating information/ or letting the BBC leave on screen outdated information. Mention has been made of travel updates on BBC regional ‘breakfast inserts’ on weekdays. Those of you with satellite TV will fond it quite easy to look at these for the different regions - if you are a really keen transport geek. The BBC London one appears to be the best at this. BBC Wales are pretty hopeless and will usually ignore anything that is just over the border in England - even if the M4 was blocked on the English side of the Severn Bridges. They will often not even mention if GWR trains from England are not reaching Wales - even though they are used by commuters say from Newport to Cardiff & Swansea - which of course, means they all try and jam into Transport for Wales’ 2 & 3 coach trains.

Regarding jams on the roads - it is always best to go on Google Maps with Traffic enabled as the jams show up in red in live time. (Google get this from the movement of the mobile phones within the vehicles).
Click map for live example:>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.568217,-2.8266176,11.86z/data=!5m1!1e1

whhistle · 17 Aug 2019

Who uses the Red button these days?
It's good for watching other TV channels / feeds but I rarely see it advertised on programmes these days.

duffield · 17 Aug 2019

jimm said:
Did you actually bother to read my post or the one preceding it by PhilipE? Which noted that there was disruption today (as in Friday), and I included links to the logs of the trains caught up in it. Unless you consider trains being delayed by 60 minutes plus not to be significant.

Yes, I read your post. You've misunderstood my post or I've not been clear. I wasn't talking about this particular issue, I was talking about the general issue with local news on the red button being 'stale' with no indication of when it was posted, which definitely does happen. I have seen this on a number of occasions. To be very clear, I have no knowledge of this specific case, this is why I referred to hypothetical towns x and y etc.

Clip · 17 Aug 2019

Im surprised anyone would use the red button to find out this information against local news or radio which would be much more up to date

Surreytraveller · 17 Aug 2019

I've always found teletext (for those that remember it), travel updates on telly and radio etc to generally be out of date with travel news

Hadders · 17 Aug 2019

I’m surprised that the BBC still continue to publish travel news in this way given the cost pressure they’re under.

In the era of smartphones and apps does anyone use BBC for travel news any more?

The only bit of BBC travel that is useful is radio travel bulletins.

RichT54 · 16 Sep 2019

The BBC Red Button text service won't be giving the wrong information for much longer, as it's going to be discontinued in early 2020, according to the BBC.

"From early 2020, viewers will no longer be able to access text-based BBC News and BBC Sport content by pressing red," a BBC spokesperson said.

edwin_m · 16 Sep 2019

Seems a shame, it can't be costing much and it's easier than the website if you want a quick update. I guess the deaf and people with no web access will miss it. I wonder if the content could be integrated with the website somehow so it doesn't need extra work to prepare it.

CLH · 16 Sep 2019

edwin_m said:
Seems a shame, it can't be costing much and it's easier than the website if you want a quick update. I guess the deaf and people with no web access will miss it. I wonder if the content could be integrated with the website somehow so it doesn't need extra work to prepare it.

Content for news already is driven by the website content. The first four paragraphs of any news story on the website form the red button version of a story.

edwin_m · 16 Sep 2019

CLH said:
Content for news already is driven by the website content. The first four paragraphs of any news story on the website form the red button version of a story.

Thanks for that information. My wife tends to catch up on news via red button and I usually use bbc.co.uk, but we haven't compared notes!

Mathew S · 17 Sep 2019

edwin_m said:
Seems a shame, it can't be costing much and it's easier than the website if you want a quick update. I guess the deaf and people with no web access will miss it. I wonder if the content could be integrated with the website somehow so it doesn't need extra work to prepare it.

It costs an absolute fortune, I'm afraid. The plethora of different device specifications, operating systems, and delivery platforms it has to be compatible with means testing alone is incredibly expensive in money, time, and staffing; not to mention developing and maintaining the platform. Then, of course, there's the extra time and effort people like myself have to put in creating extra versions of news stories to populate the blasted thing.
Of course, if it was popular and widely used, none of that would matter, but usage of the red button has been falling for a while now, and isn't likely to recover; smartphones have seen to that. Rightly or wrongly, when there's an enormous hole in the budget, red button news and sport is an obvious thing to lose, and one which the overwhelming majority of people aren't going to miss.

Tetchytyke · 17 Sep 2019

Mathew S said:
The BBC traffic & travel team (and the service they provide) has been cut massively over the last few years. A victim of falling usage of the service, and the swinging budget cuts imposed on the organisation for political reasons.

This. (As it seems you know!) To all intents and purposes there isn't a traffic and travel team anymore; BBC traffic news was closed a couple of years ago.

duffield · 17 Sep 2019

I'll miss this, despite being online a lot it's part of my morning, drink coffee and look at the national and local news. And I use it for a quick look at the football results and tables.
If they hadn't have wasted money making fancier versions (e.g. adding images and videos on my Virgin V6 box version) instead of just keeping a simple text based approach (as indeed they did for the local news) maybe they could have kept it going a bit longer.

Steve Harris · 17 Sep 2019

Mathew S said:
It costs an absolute fortune, I'm afraid. The plethora of different device specifications, operating systems, and delivery platforms it has to be compatible with means testing alone is incredibly expensive in money, time, and staffing; not to mention developing and maintaining the platform. Then, of course, there's the extra time and effort people like myself have to put in creating extra versions of news stories to populate the blasted thing.
Of course, if it was popular and widely used, none of that would matter, but usage of the red button has been falling for a while now, and isn't likely to recover; smartphones have seen to that. Rightly or wrongly, when there's an enormous hole in the budget, red button news and sport is an obvious thing to lose, and one which the overwhelming majority of people aren't going to miss.

The only thing is, the most vulnerable people in society will miss it !

My 80 something dad doesn't have internet access and already gets frustrated when he's in conversation with a company and he gets told "check our website".

I fully understand that something has to give but it would be interesting if something like this ever got took to court on grounds of discrimination.

BBC Red Button Service Giving Wrong Information.

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