National Rail App

modernrail · 17 Nov 2024

Stephen42 said:
Very few private sector organisations will offer a white labelled version with indefinite protections against cost escalation. Transferring between white labelled products can be difficult and the risk of vendor lock in to an organisation who can name their price will make anyone in control of public money nervous. Trainline may be happy to provide portals for TOCs, National Rail itself seems more likely to cannibalise their own revenue and have a much bigger price tag as a result.

The main problem for the website is design and while significant alteration is required it's mostly tweaks rather than a comprehensive technical rebuild. Some of the designers involved have screenshots of app designs on their personal websites that are a lot better. Possibly a case of the project going over budget and scope getting cut. The issues are much more implementation and execution than the underlying strategy.

The bit I don’t get is how the basics have been lost. I am not an IT guy but before they got into all the tricky design bits why did they not do:

Dear client:

Functionality:

- this is what it looks like now
- this is how we propose to change it and why
- these are the differences in terms of things that will be gained and things that will be lost
- how does that look?
- let’s now improve the concept until we have something we agree works at least as well as the last version and obviously better because otherwise no point spending money changing anything

Looks and feel:

- this is what we propose to implement the above functionality
- how does that look and feel?

It feels like these incredibly basic initial steps for what is a pretty basic product have been completely missed or badly botched.

As others have said here, if you can’t show you can improve the basic functionality, just don’t change it until, with all your professional expertise, you can show that.

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TUC · 17 Nov 2024

Stephen42 said:
Very few private sector organisations will offer a white labelled version with indefinite protections against cost escalation. Transferring between white labelled products can be difficult and the risk of vendor lock in to an organisation who can name their price will make anyone in control of public money nervous. Trainline may be happy to provide portals for TOCs, National Rail itself seems more likely to cannibalise their own revenue and have a much bigger price tag as a result.

Is it not more that anyone as poor at negotiating contracts as the public sector would find themselves unable to figure out how to succeed in getting requirements such as cost escalation protection and transfer abilities built in?

35B · 17 Nov 2024

modernrail said:
The bit I don’t get is how the basics have been lost. I am not an IT guy but before they got into all the tricky design bits why did they not do:

Dear client:

Functionality:

- this is what it looks like now
- this is how we propose to change it and why
- these are the differences in terms of things that will be gained and things that will be lost
- how does that look?
- let’s now improve the concept until we have something we agree works at least as well as the last version and obviously better because otherwise no point spending money changing anything

Looks and feel:

- this is what we propose to implement the above functionality
- how does that look and feel?

It feels like these incredibly basic initial steps for what is a pretty basic product have been completely missed or badly botched.

As others have said here, if you can’t show you can improve the basic functionality, just don’t change it until, with all your professional expertise, you can show that.

I'm non technical but work in the industry. From experience, getting consensus on those answers is like herding cats, and things like brand image tend to be controlled quite closely by the customer. That is work that suppliers will not do in detail before signing a contract, because it can be time consuming and expensive.

The other question, which isn't clear in this discussion, is how much the change is to do with look and feel, and how much it's actually re-engineering of what's underneath. Those can drive very different answers about what's needed, and what the costs are.

TUC said:
Is it not more that anyone as poor at negotiating contracts as the public sector would find themselves unable to figure out how to succeed in getting requirements such as cost escalation protection and transfer abilities built in?

From experience, the public sector are very good at negotiating contracts with those kinds of protections. What they're much less good at doing, for many reasons, is managing the trade off between cost and value, and then controlling scope once a contract has been signed.

Stephen42 · 17 Nov 2024

modernrail said:
The bit I don’t get is how the basics have been lost. I am not an IT guy but before they got into all the tricky design bits why did they not do:

Dear client:

Functionality:

- this is what it looks like now
- this is how we propose to change it and why
- these are the differences in terms of things that will be gained and things that will be lost
- how does that look?
- let’s now improve the concept until we have something we agree works at least as well as the last version and obviously better because otherwise no point spending money changing anything

Looks and feel:

- this is what we propose to implement the above functionality
- how does that look and feel?

It feels like these incredibly basic initial steps for what is a pretty basic product have been completely missed or badly botched.

As others have said here, if you can’t show you can improve the basic functionality, just don’t change it until, with all your professional expertise, you can show that.

I'm not involved in the rail industry or this project, but work in the IT industry as a consultant delivering software. I would be surprised if the client weren't asked to sign off on the designs before proceeding into build. I've never seen a project where the client wasn't consulted about designs at an early stage. With National Rail having the bare minimum done to it for many years switching into full on product development could have been challenging. For short term projects often a second group of contractors are brought in to fulfil product roles on behalf of the client and domain specific knowledge is added by in house staff. Sometimes those in house staff have full time roles beside the project and aren't that engaged or able to consider the outputs as result. There can be plenty of other reasons why designs people later regret are originally approved too.

Failing to deliver anything at all saying it needs further money before going live won't go down well. Frequently there is limited time and budget with no clear route to obtaining significant chunks of further cash. Few decision makers are going to trust you saying you can do it with X more cash when you previously said you could do it with Y cash and failed. While there are fixed price delivery models, the consultancy is going to have controls to avoid the client changing their mind during development and being committed to develop that for the same price. (Moving the risk onto the consultancy also increases the price to reflect that risk).

TUC said:
Is it not more that anyone as poor at negotiating contracts as the public sector would find themselves unable to figure out how to succeed in getting requirements such as cost escalation protection and transfer abilities built in?

No, they can get built in it's just those requirements get factored into the price. In much the same way an employee is unlikely to agree to a 10 year contract with low fixed salary increase and a significant exit fee if they leave at the same salary as they would for a standard employment contract. Shorter term deals are going to be more agreeable, but the risk moves earlier on the horizon. A procurement team will be considering the availability of competing solutions, bespoke additions required and relative cost of different ownership models.

infobleep · 17 Nov 2024

35B said:
Not on the inside, but 3 & 4 make sense given a project I am involved with. The theory is that by having responsive design and the right technology mix, you can develop an “omnichannel” experience that means the company can develop online functionality once m without needing to do things separately for different devices.

That is especially appealing when the website is a cost, not a business benefit - as is the case with NR

Surely it's a benefit if it encourages people to spend money rather than being put off?

yorksrob said:
That people are prepared to own up to this crap is amazing.

Where are they owning up? Perhaps I missed it.

modernrail said:
The bit I don’t get is how the basics have been lost. I am not an IT guy but before they got into all the tricky design bits why did they not do:

Dear client:

Functionality:

- this is what it looks like now
- this is how we propose to change it and why
- these are the differences in terms of things that will be gained and things that will be lost
- how does that look?
- let’s now improve the concept until we have something we agree works at least as well as the last version and obviously better because otherwise no point spending money changing anything

Looks and feel:

- this is what we propose to implement the above functionality
- how does that look and feel?

It feels like these incredibly basic initial steps for what is a pretty basic product have been completely missed or badly botched.

As others have said here, if you can’t show you can improve the basic functionality, just don’t change it until, with all your professional expertise, you can show that.

It must be botched as it was user tested. I have not independently verified the claims, to quote the sort of thing the BBC News sometimes say but not always when written news reports are published.

modernrail · 17 Nov 2024

Stephen42 said:
I'm not involved in the rail industry or this project, but work in the IT industry as a consultant delivering software. I would be surprised if the client weren't asked to sign off on the designs before proceeding into build. I've never seen a project where the client wasn't consulted about designs at an early stage. With National Rail having the bare minimum done to it for many years switching into full on product development could have been challenging. For short term projects often a second group of contractors are brought in to fulfil product roles on behalf of the client and domain specific knowledge is added by in house staff. Sometimes those in house staff have full time roles beside the project and aren't that engaged or able to consider the outputs as result. There can be plenty of other reasons why designs people later regret are originally approved too.

Failing to deliver anything at all saying it needs further money before going live won't go down well. Frequently there is limited time and budget with no clear route to obtaining significant chunks of further cash. Few decision makers are going to trust you saying you can do it with X more cash when you previously said you could do it with Y cash and failed. While there are fixed price delivery models, the consultancy is going to have controls to avoid the client changing their mind during development and being committed to develop that for the same price. (Moving the risk onto the consultancy also increases the price to reflect that risk).

No, they can get built in it's just those requirements get factored into the price. In much the same way an employee is unlikely to agree to a 10 year contract with low fixed salary increase and a significant exit fee if they leave at the same salary as they would for a standard employment contract. Shorter term deals are going to be more agreeable, but the risk moves earlier on the horizon. A procurement team will be considering the availability of competing solutions, bespoke additions required and relative cost of different ownership models.

This is app. A pretty simple one at that. If it is reasonable to expect the same sort of excuses for poor decision making in other areas of the railway, I would have every sympathy with any Treasury official who says not a chance I am approving any spending at all. It just feels like there needs to be a big mindset shift and this update is one example amongst quite a few.

I get why it happens, I get how it happens, but it doesn’t make it good practice or a good way to spend taxpayers money. Ultimately a private company paid to get something right didn’t pay enough attention to the quite obvious here and perhaps didn’t help its client get it right in the process.

Perhaps it was a case of a company holding itself out in its bid as understanding the sector but not really having the skills to actually understand the market it was designing for.

Peakrider · 18 Nov 2024

modernrail said:
It is not a ticket purchasing portal. It is primarily an information and planning portal. Who has decided it should become primarily a ticket portal? If that decision has been made, why is there not a note on the site directing you to the National Rail information app, or the suggestions in this thread. Even more to the point, why does it not sell tickets. It is absolute nonsense.

The information is locked out even though it is still required by those who have already bought tickets for that journey.

I can see no reason whatsoever why the site cannot both give the information it used to on the timings of stops and the stations at which changes need to be made, whilst also including a note (lie) that no tickets are available for that journey.

What sort of confusion would that cause?

Whilst I note the suggestions in this thread, they are all 3rd party providers. I don’t want a 3rd party provider. I want an answer from the official database that my taxpayer pounds go to subsidise. This should be one of the most basic things a publicly funded railway is able to provide. The bloody timetable.

I can’t agree more. They have similarly changed the Apple NR iPhone app and it is atrocious. For some reason it is in large print so only one maybe two journeys are shown per screen. It is a hideous mess, and exemplifies a railway that is lost at sea and run (managed) by amateurs.
They stop printing timetables then stop making information readily available online. No wonder after 4 decades of rail travel I now drive everywhere.

yorksrob · 18 Nov 2024

TUC said:
Is it not more that anyone as poor at negotiating contracts as the public sector would find themselves unable to figure out how to succeed in getting requirements such as cost escalation protection and transfer abilities built in?

The public sector is forced to go out to procurement by law - and every bid has to be studiously scored, marked and the notes saved in case of legal challenge.

This is why you end up with companies who are very good at writing bids, rather than actually doing what they said they would do, winning.

Anyhow, isn't NRE run by whatever ATOC are called these days, so it's a private sector bodge.

35B · 18 Nov 2024

infobleep said:
Surely it's a benefit if it encourages people to spend money rather than being put off?

Follow the money. NRE can’t sell tickets, and therefore can’t earn income for itself from a good, effective, website. Therefore the decisions about NRE need to be looked at as cost decisions.

I suspect there is a tension in the background between that cost focus, and the job of RDG to promote the railway, and earn extra income for its members. However, and I’ve seen this at work elsewhere, that common purpose only goes so far.

MrJeeves · 18 Nov 2024

35B said:
Follow the money. NRE can’t sell tickets, and therefore can’t earn income for itself from a good, effective, website.

NRE does forward to TOC retailers, though. It's not like there is no way to get from NRE to buying a ticket.

You'd have thought the TOCs (the members of RDG) would be desperate to abstract revenue from third party retailers where it can.

Recessio · 18 Nov 2024

I've got nothing against using the website as a basis for the app (it makes a lot of sense to share when possible - look how many other programs/apps run in Electron and are 99% identical to the website with just minor changes to link in with each operating system).

My problem is when this app is literally just a link to the website, and doesn't have the same feature set as the previous app.

modernrail · 18 Nov 2024

modernrail said:
This is app. A pretty simple one at that. If it is reasonable to expect the same sort of excuses for poor decision making in other areas of the railway, I would have every sympathy with any Treasury official who says not a chance I am approving any spending at all. It just feels like there needs to be a big mindset shift and this update is one example amongst quite a few.

I get why it happens, I get how it happens, but it doesn’t make it good practice or a good way to spend taxpayers money. Ultimately a private company paid to get something right didn’t pay enough attention to the quite obvious here and perhaps didn’t help its client get it right in the process.

Recessio said:
I've got nothing against using the website as a basis for the app (it makes a lot of sense to share when possible - look how many other programs/apps run in Electron and are 99% identical to the website with just minor changes to link in with each operating system).

My problem is when this app is literally just a link to the website, and doesn't have the same feature set as the previous app.

Which is why I was concerned when I saw the website change and was a bit surprised some on here could not see the follow-on downgrade of the app coming!

35B · 18 Nov 2024

MrJeeves said:
NRE does forward to TOC retailers, though. It's not like there is no way to get from NRE to buying a ticket.

You'd have thought the TOCs (the members of RDG) would be desperate to abstract revenue from third party retailers where it can.

From experience (non rail) of working with a company owned by its customers, I do not share your optimism for one moment. The budget will be RDG's, and will be maanged to cost - against a backdrop of subscribing companies who want to cut their bills. There will be little or no linkage between those decisions and the sales teams trying to maximise sales through their own websites, for whom that cost may seem good value when offset against the proportion of the fare paid to the retailer.

The TOCs, meanwhile, will have other focuses - they get the revenue almost regardless of channel, because it's only the retailer proportion that they lose.

modernrail · 18 Nov 2024

Thinking about it, has the DfT actually disincentivised TOCs to be bothered about capturing the retailer commission by removing revenue risk, or is this treated separately and so can generate genuine additional profit?

Peakrider said:
I can’t agree more. They have similarly changed the Apple NR iPhone app and it is atrocious. For some reason it is in large print so only one maybe two journeys are shown per screen. It is a hideous mess, and exemplifies a railway that is lost at sea and run (managed) by amateurs.
They stop printing timetables then stop making information readily available online. No wonder after 4 decades of rail travel I now drive everywhere.

That’s an interesting point. Has the DfT (possibly indadvertedly) sanctioned a sensible move away from printed timetables but then forgotten to prescribe a minimum service level for its effective replacement.

In my mind that minimum level is at least equivalent to a timetable (so showing all stops for a service from beginning to end and times etc) and also additional functionality to take account of the opportunity a digital world brings.

Instead we seem to have gone backwards.

Adam Williams · 18 Nov 2024

Recessio said:
I've got nothing against using the website as a basis for the app (it makes a lot of sense to share when possible - look how many other programs/apps run in Electron and are 99% identical to the website with just minor changes to link in with each operating system).

Electron is a scourge on today's software. And I say that as a software engineer that spends a substantial amount of time writing HTML/CSS/Typescript.

Opting to use it sends a very loud and clear message that you don't give a damn about the end-user's platform or the user interface conventions in use there. Use the right tool for the job at hand, it's not hard. It is a ridiculous state of affairs that we've, as an industry, adopted tooling that enables escalating from an XSS right to an RCE. But it's "all one shared codebase", amirite?! Definitely no need for platform-specific changes.

Raileasy has a grand total of two engineers maintaining mobile; one for Android, one for iOS. There's really no excuse for something like National Rail.

infobleep · 19 Nov 2024

35B said:
Follow the money. NRE can’t sell tickets, and therefore can’t earn income for itself from a good, effective, website. Therefore the decisions about NRE need to be looked at as cost decisions.

I suspect there is a tension in the background between that cost focus, and the job of RDG to promote the railway, and earn extra income for its members. However, and I’ve seen this at work elsewhere, that common purpose only goes so far.

Apart from advertising and app sales they might not make money but if they forwarded people on elsewhere, those will make money. So it can be used to encourage growth and thus shouldn't solely be seen as a cost.

I do appreciate it may be that some people higher up might not undsrstand this concept.

MrJeeves said:
NRE does forward to TOC retailers, though. It's not like there is no way to get from NRE to buying a ticket.

You'd have thought the TOCs (the members of RDG) would be desperate to abstract revenue from third party retailers where it can.

Exactly

35B said:
From experience (non rail) of working with a company owned by its customers, I do not share your optimism for one moment. The budget will be RDG's, and will be maanged to cost - against a backdrop of subscribing companies who want to cut their bills. There will be little or no linkage between those decisions and the sales teams trying to maximise sales through their own websites, for whom that cost may seem good value when offset against the proportion of the fare paid to the retailer.

The TOCs, meanwhile, will have other focuses - they get the revenue almost regardless of channel, because it's only the retailer proportion that they lose.

And if this encourages more sales then the TOCs see the results. Of course rhe government are taking the revenue as the TOCs get paid a management fee.

35B · 19 Nov 2024

infobleep said:
Apart from advertising and app sales they might not make money but if they forwarded people on elsewhere, those will make money. So it can be used to encourage growth and thus shouldn't solely be seen as a cost.

I do appreciate it may be that some people higher up might not undsrstand this concept.

Exactly

And if this encourages more sales then the TOCs see the results. Of course rhe government are taking the revenue as the TOCs get paid a management fee.

And my point is that these come through different budgets, and the gains of retailer pass through are very limited. That means that pressure on NRE to deliver an optimum experience will be limited when most of the revenue will come through anyway, and free of charge.

yorksrob · 20 Dec 2024

I see that the app doesn't work very well with our third world mobile phone infrastructure.

With an intermittent signal it just times out continually.

flitwickbeds · 21 Dec 2024

yorksrob said:
With an intermittent signal it just times out continually.

As opposed to...?

JRT · 21 Dec 2024

modernrail said:
The latest version of the National Rail App is infuriating. There are loads of circumstances where you are now locked out from looking at journey details. It is any situation where the app decides it can’t offer you a ticket for that service.

What on earth is going on. This is primarily an information app not a ticket portal. How am I meant to check where I am meant to change, the timings of change etc if I happen to be on a service that has fake ‘sold out’. Are you not entitled to that information any more. Are you just meant to miss your change and end up somewhere else?

Now I have found another version of the problem. Where no through ticket is available. The attached is the journey from Sheffield to East Midlands Airport. I can’t click in to the journey to check the nature, location and timing of the change.

Who on earth signed off on this design. It simply does not work. It is absolutely ridiculous for a supposedly serious organisation whose whole purpose is to provide information about National rail journeys.

The NORTHERN app is similar: if there's no fare available, it won't show the times. For example Goole – Leeds/Bradford will only show the through service via Snaith and routes via Doncaster but not via Brough, even though it's a quicker, shorter route (passes through Howden/Gilberdyke twice but doesn't call). The NORTHERN day ticket Friends & Family is valid of course, but no fare listed so no times

yorkie · 21 Dec 2024

JRT said:
The NORTHERN app is similar: if there's no fare available, it won't show the times. For example Goole – Leeds/Bradford will only show the through service via Snaith and routes via Doncaster but not via Brough, even though it's a quicker, shorter route (passes through Howden/Gilberdyke twice but doesn't call). The NORTHERN day ticket Friends & Family is valid of course, but no fare listed so no times

Our website always shows the fastest journey, however Rail Delivery Group won't accept that many customers typically wish to take the fastest journey opportunity, so you end up with nonsense like this.

yorksrob · 21 Dec 2024

flitwickbeds said:
As opposed to...?

I'd hope the app would remember where it was, to resume when the signal came back.

nwales58 · 22 Dec 2024

'There are no trains from Wrexham, or Shrewsbury, to Birmingham on Sundays in January' says a normal person (and went off to book an expensive taxi to get them to the airport, not believing that trains were running and needing multiple tickets was rubbish).

National Rail shows almost every journey where the fastest is to connect into Avanti on their strike days as: Standard not available, First Class not available, This route may require multiple tickets. Please re-plan your journey. No obvious way for a normal person to see that they can travel but times Wolverhampton onwards are a bit uncertain at present.

Trainline, at least, shows 'Tickets coming soon' which is a sensible explanation.

modernrail · 22 Dec 2024

nwales58 said:
'There are no trains from Wrexham, or Shrewsbury, to Birmingham on Sundays in January' says a normal person (and went off to book an expensive taxi to get them to the airport, not believing that trains were running and needing multiple tickets was rubbish).

National Rail shows almost every journey where the fastest is to connect into Avanti on their strike days as: Standard not available, First Class not available, This route may require multiple tickets. Please re-plan your journey. No obvious way for a normal person to see that they can travel but times Wolverhampton onwards are a bit uncertain at present.

Trainline, at least, shows 'Tickets coming soon' which is a sensible explanation.

Yeah, some of the things coming up are misleading and in some cases bizarre.

There was planned engineering on Thameslink this weekend meaning trains from Herne Hill to City Thameslink required a change at Blackfriars. Instead of showing that I had (from exactly the same search done a few minutes apart)

- one result saying no journeys for the next two hours
- one result saying multiple tickets may be required for this journey.

Those results were gibberish. The right answer was change at a Blackfriars onto one of the many trains going on to City Thameslink.

I then checked for times from Herne Hill to Blackfriars and it said there was a train at 9.53am, which was just outright wrong. The train was at 9.57.

Mikey C · 28 Mar 2025

Interesting spelling of Gravesend yesterday...

(A screenshot of my phone showing Gravsend instead of Gravesend)

Frontera2 · 30 Mar 2025

That information is manually entered - so a simple typo, not a system error.

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