Transport Direct Portal
Encyclopedia
The Transport Direct Portal is a distributed Internet-based multi-modal journey planner
providing information for travel in England
, Wales
and Scotland
. It is managed by Transport Direct
, a division of the Department for Transport
. It was launched in 2004 and is operated by a consortium led by Atos Origin
and has since been enhanced with additional functionality including a cycle journey planning function.
The planner uses a distributed approach based on the Traveline
journey planners for each Traveline region with the JourneyWeb
protocol being used to manage journeys between Traveline regions. Each Journey Planner integrates information from many different transport operators and sources.
Operation of the Portal cost £5.9 million for the period April 2006 to March 2007. The total cost of the Transport Direct Programme was £55 million to March 2007.
established the Traveline
organisation in 2000 to develop a number of regional call centres, initially using paper timetables, and to provide a national public transport information service. It was divided into 11 different areas (regions) each of which develop computerised journey planners.
Transport Direct wanted to be able to provide a single point of access to this service and a contract to develop the Transport Direct Portal was awarded in 2002 to Atos Origin
which would provide a integrated point of access to the regional journey planners using the JourneyWeb
protocol which was developed for the purpose.
Following a two-year period of development and testing and was officially launched by Alistair Darling
, the Secretary of State for Transport
on 31 December 2004. At the time it was claimed to be the first national door-to-door travel to provide details of both Public transport
and car for journeys. By way of historical comparison, Google maps
was not launched until early the following year. Google Transit was released in Google Labs
in December 2005 and was not integrated into Google Maps until October 2007.
A number of issues with the underlying data that were picked up by the national media resulting in poor results.
During 2005, new service delivery channels (Mobile phone
, Personal digital assistant
and Interactive television
) were introduced. Functionality to find cheaper rail fares and a day trip planner were added as well as information about the location of car parks and other points of interest.
The product was further enhanced in 2006 to accommodate the wider range of services and provide easier access from the home page to the core door-to-door and live travel news services.
In March 2009 Transport Direct added cycle journey planning to the Portal for Manchester and Merseyside.
Usage of the Transport Direct Portal has grown significantly since its launched and is now operating at an annual rate of about 18.5 million user sessions.
Journey Planner
A journey planner is a specialised electronic search engine used to find the best journey between two points by some means of transport. Journey planners have been widely used in the travel industry since the 1970s by booking agents accessed through a user interface on a computer terminal, and to...
providing information for travel in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It is managed by Transport Direct
Transport Direct
Transport Direct is a division of the UK Department for Transport to develop better information technology systems to support public transport. It developed and operates the Transport Direct Portal which is a public facing multi-modal journey planner...
, a division of the Department for Transport
Department for Transport
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are not devolved...
. It was launched in 2004 and is operated by a consortium led by Atos Origin
Atos Origin
Atos S.A. is an international information technology corporation which operates in 42 countries worldwide, with over 78,500 employees...
and has since been enhanced with additional functionality including a cycle journey planning function.
Operation
The portal offers a door-to-door journey planner which allows the user to different transport modes including car, rail, bus and coach, air, walking and cycling. Specific features include:- Routing using one or more modes: local bus, coaches, rail and walking.
- Cycle journey planning for 32 towns and counties
- Car routing that takes into account likely traffic congestion based on past experience and can route to a suitable car park or park and ride site.
- Internal flight routing in Great BritainGreat BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, with links to the operator to price your journey. - Rail-only all-day journey plans with the ability to search for the train journeys with the cheaper fares.
- Compare journeys opportunities between selected major British cities and transport interchanges by different modes.
- Live travel and traffic news – travel and traffic incidents – both planned and unplanned – as well as real-time train running information.
- Real-time train running information that can be accessed from a Mobile phoneMobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
and an Interactive televisionInteractive televisionInteractive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...
. - A white labelWhite labelWhite label records are vinyl records with adhesive plain white labels affixed. Test pressings, usually with Test Pressing written on the label, with catalogue number, artist and recording time or date, are produced in small quantities to evaluate the quality of the disc production...
version which is available through (DirectgovDirectgovDirectgov is the UK government's digital service for people in the United Kingdom, providing a single point of access to public sector information and services.The content is developed by government departments, working with a central Directgov team...
, BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and Visit Britain). - An exposed Web serviceWeb serviceA Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
(Service-oriented architectureService-oriented architectureIn software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
) (UK Department for Work and PensionsDepartment for Work and PensionsThe Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security and headed by the Secretary of State for Work and...
and DirectgovDirectgovDirectgov is the UK government's digital service for people in the United Kingdom, providing a single point of access to public sector information and services.The content is developed by government departments, working with a central Directgov team...
). - Links back to the service are provided from Google Transit and National Rail Enquiries.
- Estimation of CO2 emissions for your journey, whether by car or public transport.
The planner uses a distributed approach based on the Traveline
Traveline
Traveline is a partnership between local authorities and transport operators in the UK to provide impartial and comprehensive information about public transport which has operated since 2000...
journey planners for each Traveline region with the JourneyWeb
JourneyWeb
JourneyWeb is an XML protocol to allow distributed journey planning engines to communicate in order to provide multimodal journeys spanning different regions....
protocol being used to manage journeys between Traveline regions. Each Journey Planner integrates information from many different transport operators and sources.
Cost and usage
The 10 millionth user session took place on 1 December 2006 with the number of session steadily growing over time; 1.126 million user sessions were recorded for August 2007. By March 2010 a total of 70 million user sessions have been provided, with the total uses by the start of 2011 being 81 million thus being used over 11 million times in a year.Operation of the Portal cost £5.9 million for the period April 2006 to March 2007. The total cost of the Transport Direct Programme was £55 million to March 2007.
History
Transport DirectTransport Direct
Transport Direct is a division of the UK Department for Transport to develop better information technology systems to support public transport. It developed and operates the Transport Direct Portal which is a public facing multi-modal journey planner...
established the Traveline
Traveline
Traveline is a partnership between local authorities and transport operators in the UK to provide impartial and comprehensive information about public transport which has operated since 2000...
organisation in 2000 to develop a number of regional call centres, initially using paper timetables, and to provide a national public transport information service. It was divided into 11 different areas (regions) each of which develop computerised journey planners.
Transport Direct wanted to be able to provide a single point of access to this service and a contract to develop the Transport Direct Portal was awarded in 2002 to Atos Origin
Atos Origin
Atos S.A. is an international information technology corporation which operates in 42 countries worldwide, with over 78,500 employees...
which would provide a integrated point of access to the regional journey planners using the JourneyWeb
JourneyWeb
JourneyWeb is an XML protocol to allow distributed journey planning engines to communicate in order to provide multimodal journeys spanning different regions....
protocol which was developed for the purpose.
Following a two-year period of development and testing and was officially launched by Alistair Darling
Alistair Darling
Alistair Maclean Darling is a Scottish Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament since 1987, currently for Edinburgh South West. He served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2007 to 2010...
, the Secretary of State for Transport
Secretary of State for Transport
The Secretary of State for Transport is the member of the cabinet responsible for the British Department for Transport. The role has had a high turnover as new appointments are blamed for the failures of decades of their predecessors...
on 31 December 2004. At the time it was claimed to be the first national door-to-door travel to provide details of both Public transport
Public transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
and car for journeys. By way of historical comparison, Google maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
was not launched until early the following year. Google Transit was released in Google Labs
Google Labs
Google Labs was a page created by Google to demonstrate and test new Google projects. Google calls Google Labs,Google also uses an invitation-only phase for trusted testers to test projects including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Wave and many of these have their own "labs" webpages for...
in December 2005 and was not integrated into Google Maps until October 2007.
A number of issues with the underlying data that were picked up by the national media resulting in poor results.
During 2005, new service delivery channels (Mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
, Personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
and Interactive television
Interactive television
Interactive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...
) were introduced. Functionality to find cheaper rail fares and a day trip planner were added as well as information about the location of car parks and other points of interest.
The product was further enhanced in 2006 to accommodate the wider range of services and provide easier access from the home page to the core door-to-door and live travel news services.
In March 2009 Transport Direct added cycle journey planning to the Portal for Manchester and Merseyside.
Usage of the Transport Direct Portal has grown significantly since its launched and is now operating at an annual rate of about 18.5 million user sessions.