please empty your brain below

The swirly roundel as the page is loading - nice touch!
As ever, the contrast between London and the rest of the country (and especially those areas outside the non-metropolitan counties) is striking:

One of the two main bus operators here, in Oxfordshire, Thames Travel (who are part of the Go-Ahead group - so should really be a lot, lot better, than they are) changed all of their timetables, to much publicity and talk of "improvements" (while playing down fare increases and the brutal reduction of some rural routes), in the areas, last week. It had been clear beforehand, at a glance, that these timetables would be....problematic (not allowing sufficient time to cover journeys: extending and diverting previously local self-contained services along congested main roads). And so it came to pass - over the last week many of their buses were running later, and quite a few substantially late (40-50 mins late: on routes that run only once an hour).

Thames Travel's response, as regards providing information online: turn off their facebook page that was their primary method of communicating with customers - the amount of complaints and late-running being recorded, both by the company and disgrunted customers evidently being both embarrassing and potentially threatening to the company's future...

Like to see TfL try to get away with that....
Will TfL finally incorporate Tramlink into its mobile site? Currently you need to use the desktop version and it doesn't appear on the front page. As a result BBC London doesn't include the live information on its display of other TfL modes because it takes a feed direct from the site. Yet another example of Tramlink being the poor relation of the TfL family.
A quick check of my local station (Ealing Common) reveals that it has waiting rooms & WiFi, of which it has neither.

I'm just being pedantic about a small error of course, but if you've got that wrong TfL - what else have you got wrong?
I was reading through that entire post thinking, it sounds like they are offering everything Citymapper can do in an app, then you mentioned the same thing! I do wonder if TfL would be better off just pointing people to something that already exists and works rather than making their own version?
Perhaps TfL should just buy Citymapper? How much is the new website costing?
I've not had much of a play with the new site yet but I like the sound of the Nearby function - might go a bit of a way to replacing the not-that-old bus maps feature that existed until recently on the existing TfL site.

The way I find I use the current tools on my mobile is to have my regular stations bookmarked. That way I can hit one button and go straight to the live departures for my station, or to the Countdown page for the buses. Hopefully the new site is built in such a way that this is still possible.
I was astonished to find that Bank station has a car park amongst its useful facilities.

REALLY ?
Of course TfL read your website. How you can even suggest that they don't I do not know. They may not fix everything you point out but I'm convinced they read all the popular social media commentary that's out there.

Thanks for the tip off that the TfL website update has gone a further step. As you have said the concept is nice but the execution (so far) falls short. I'm surprised they can show tube next departures but not buses properly. Most odd. When selecting a bus stop and the looking at the departure info and paging up I find the local map has moved south from the original selection. Bizarre.
...sure there is going to be the odd 'bug-bear' ...that is why it a beta-site ...i for one like what i have seen ...perhaps i'm too simple to see the faults but layout is clear and easy to read ...a important fact when you consider a aging population ...as we will be the first generation to retire in a fully digital age.
I've been waiting for months for the "Avoid Zone 1" function on the Journey Planner to be active for beta testing. I'm looking forward to that feature most of all.
Interesting that it feels so complicated to get tube information - but the whole site still assumes that the tube is the default and everything else an afterthought. I wrote a post about that a few weeks ago which also looks st the biggest mystery of all - the very strange picture at the top of the page: http://publicstrategist.com/2013/11/bus-company-train-set/
I've never found that TfL really had a clue when it comes to designing and building useful web interfaces. I've given up and built my own based on their API. It has black text on a white page and just tells me when the bloomin' train or bus is coming.
Still can't plan a journey after 23rd though. Grrr.
Woo, that Stationmaster app looks awesome. Hope the Android version arrives soon.










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