London Underground services on National Rail Journey Planners/Live Departures - best approach?

[otter11]

Hello,

For the purpose of this post I am considering Outer London NR stations where London Underground also serves the station, either using the same platforms as 'mainline' trains or adjacent ones.

I've noticed two approaches to how this is integrated on the National Rail journey planner/live departure boards, and am interested to understand why each approach might be used and which is the most customer friendly.

Approach 1 - London Underground services do not show on National Rail Journey Planners or Live Departures. E.g. District Line Barking-Upminster, Met line Harrow-Amersham, District line Wimbledon

For this approach, if you view Live Departures on the National Rail website you won't see any Underground services listed.
Pros: For stations with very regular LU services, it avoids cluttering up the live departure boards. Also avoids any need for LU data feeds to be integrated into NR Journey Planners etc.
Cons: Where LU services are less frequent, it could be very useful for customers to see these alongside other services.

Approach 2 - London Underground services show on National Rail Journey Planners or Live Departures. E.g. District Line Gunnersbury-Richmond, Bakerloo line Queens Park-Harrow

For this approach, if you view Live Departures on the National Rail website you will see all Underground services listed. However these are listed to the timetable and from experience delays and cancellations aren't always well reflected.
Pros: Makes planning interchanges much easier (when LU is running to timetable). For example, arriving on an SWR train into Richmond I can quickly view live departures for all trains from Richmond and see overground/LU services side by side. Platforms are shown (although sometimes not correct)
Cons: Accuracy of information doesn't seem to be great during disruption, sometimes LU trains are shown as on time when they are not. Could create excess clutter on departure boards if there are very frequent LU services.

Personally I have always found Approach 2 quite useful at Richmond when I used to commute to Gunnersbury, however as above the accuracy of information wasn't always great. At Wimbledon Approach 1 can be a bit frustrating as online LU departure boards seem to be garbage for terminal stations and even the departure boards at the District line don't show how long until the next district line train (only that the 1st train is from Platform 2, for example).

I'd also imagine customers at stations such as Chorleywood would appreciate having Approach 2 and being able to see all their services (chiltern and met line) in one place - granted I'm sure there are websites which can do this but not officially on the NR website. It might actually be confusing for customers to only see the Chiltern trains with Met line omitted.

Keen to hear thoughts and maybe other examples of how this can be done (or is done, in other cities). Feels like there should be a consistent approach?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Essentially it boils down to whether a given service interacts with NR infrastructure or not as to which approach is taken.

The examples in your first category all operate exclusively on LU infrastructure, whereas those in the second category spend some of their time on NR infrastructure so need to appear in NR systems. (Probably an oversimplification on my part, but you get the idea.)

 

[SargeNpton]

In Network Rail's published timetable data, those London Underground services that run over Network Rail tracks have been input principally for its own operating and signalling purposes, rather than retail and public journey planning purposes. As such, the long-standing practice in the train planning systems is to show all the timings on the Network Rail portion of the journey - plus the origin or destination point away from the Network Rail domain.

So, for instance, the train schedule for a Harrow & Wealdstone to Elephant & Castle Bakerloo line train will show all timing points between Harrow & Wealdstone and Queens Park, and then a time at Elephant & Castle LUL station.

As this is the data feed that goes to National Rail enquiries and to all other journey enquiry/retailing systems, only that portion of the journey affecting National Rail will appear.

How the on-station displays along the line of route deal with the non-Network Rail stops will be down to the providers of each system.

 

[miklcct]

Cons: Where LU services are less frequent, it could be very useful for customers to see these alongside other services.

Is there a data feed where I can see the combined Metropolitan / Chiltern departure boards between Harrow on the Hill and Amersham?

 

[Watershed]

TfL would probably prefer to universally use approach 1, as it gives them more leeway to alter their timetables and operate what they feel like on the day. The only reason that any lines fall under approach 2 is because they are either NR infrastructure (as in the case of Queens Park-Harrow) or are signalled by NR (as in the case of Gunnersbury-Richmond, which bizarrely enough is actually TfL infrastructure but signalled and maintained by NR).

Is there a data feed where I can see the combined Metropolitan / Chiltern departure boards between Harrow on the Hill and Amersham?

There's the Trackernet data feed, but that only gives you live departures, not timetabled.

 

[Dstock7080]

or are signalled by NR (as in the case of Gunnersbury-Richmond, which bizarrely enough is actually TfL infrastructure but signalled and maintained by NR).

Gunnersbury-Richmond is NR infrastructure.
East Putney-Wimbledon is signalled by NR but maintained by TfL.

 

[Watershed]

Gunnersbury-Richmond is NR infrastructure.
East Putney-Wimbledon is as you describe.

Apologies, mixed the two up. Either way, it's signalled and timetabled by NR.

 

[otter11]

Thanks for the info. It does feel like on the outer branches where service is infrequent that option 2 would be better - for example on the Met line.
Perhaps depending on whether the service is classed as ‘turn up and go’ or not (I think this is usually defined as 6tph or higher).

 

[bluegoblin7]

There's the Trackernet data feed, but that only gives you live departures, not timetabled.

...and, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I wouldn't rely on any of the Met feeds north of Wembley. A long-standing cable fault at Harrow renders them pretty much unusable.