Public transport journey planning has a public purpose - get people efficiently to their destination.
This planning function *might* not have financial compensation - there might be no ticket sale involved.
The likes of Trainline then have very little incentive as I see it to provide excellent journey planning. But if they can’t, and the likes of DB won’t, internationally… then who can?
@jon Here's one option: an EU agency tasked with achieving modal shift from cars and planes to buses and trains. In a similar way to National Rail Enquiries in the UK, it would offer a journey planning facility, and would provide vendor-neutral information on all publicly available fares.
It would be so attractive to use that rail operators and ticket sellers would demand to be included so that they didn't miss out on the increased sales and traffic.
@sccook @jon Good idea. This could be a task for the EU Agency for Railways (ERA) but I’m not sure they should be running the actual planner.
I think it would be better for the ERA to act as the data hub. All players that wish to take part send their data to the ERA. They clean it up, repackage it, and then make it available via an API for the market to develop products around.
There are numerous examples of public bodies doing precisely this.
@jon @sccook A new law if you want to make it compulsory to share the data.
I read the suggestion as not making data sharing compulsory but letting competition sort it out as operators don’t want to lose out on extra income. Especially not if open access operators are the first ones out of the gate with providing data.
You could then, later, consider making data sharing compulsory if there are obvious (or crucial) stragglers.
@jon if rail was a publicly owned service, then the incentive would be to give people the most efficient routes so as to maximise the availability of space for other passengers
Yet another reason that privately owned rail is a bad system
To me it’s completely obvious that planning is part of the sales process.
To me it’s also completely obvious that better planning makes better sales.
…sorry Jon, I think I cannot follow you somewhere…
@schotanus That’s a very Dutch way of seeing it.
Why should Trainline add Rodalies, when doing so will cost them more money to add than they’ll ever gain by adding them?
@kupfers @jon History, mostly.
In aviation, a model emerged with a middle layer between airlines and travel agents. Much as the airlines would love to get rid of it, they can’t because their best customers – big companies – rely on it.
In the European state railway system, the local railways sold all tickets for all other railways, so no middle layer was needed. The system they had set up eventually broke down with yield pricing, but it was never aimed at third parties to begin with.
@jon One angle to this problem is: what makes it work for road navigation & flights, and why is that not applicable to rail? Listing some thoughts.
Economically (for the routing services):
- Road: routing apps are provided essentially for free, and funded indirectly. For example, having a mapping application with directions is table stakes for a smartphone manufacturer, in order to sell their hardware. But the B2C demand of long-distance rail is lower than road so that's not table stakes.
- Flights: B2C price comparators don't operate on a huge margin (I guess?), but take a commission on sales and there's a bunch of competing comparators (pushing quality up?). Also there's money to make on B2B integrations with large companies.
As long as the B2C & B2B demand is much higher on road/flights than rail, the supply of good rail planning (from private companies) won't follow?
@jon Economically (for the operators):
- Trains: European state railway incumbents have incentives to slow down the opening of their data, to make their new competitors undiscoverable. Perhaps something a competition authority might address (if politics don't block it like MDMS)?
- Road: the few toll roads are monopolies, so no need to hide themselves. And the price isn't shown upfront when asking for directions, which is even better for the operators.
- Flights: competition is widespread already on most routes, so being the one hiding your data makes yourself less discoverable, benefiting your competitors.
@jon Technically (thinking routing algorithms):
- Road: the network is very complex with many streets & roads. But importantly, (1) there is no schedule element, i.e. roads are available at any time (except rare sections closed at night) and (2) incorrect data (e.g. unplanned road closure) is not catastrophic, an unplanned detour in a city only costs a few minutes. Planning rail with many connections requires excellent data quality.
- Flights: similar to trains, but the hub model (with a huge fanout of directions at each airport) means that one can go from anywhere to anywhere in a few hops only. And the worldwide airline alliances mean that these few-hops trips can be booked in a single ticket. Unlike rail, the routing doesn't become increasingly more complex as distance increases (and more railway operators get involved).
To take a concrete example, Google Maps has a transit option modeled over road navigation (showing duration and route), which works well at a city or regional scale. But it's not much useful on long-distance trains where pricing and availability (+ having a way to book the tickets) are critical.
danielrembrandt.bsky.social
Jon Worth
Stephen Cook
Ag
Lennard van Otterloo
Advanced Persistent Teapot
Karl Heinz Häsliprinz
Berend Schotanus
Iαn has moved account
Steve Freeman
Garry Keenor
Will Deakin
Tomáš Janoušek
Indra Kupferschmid 💙💛
Martin Hoffmann
ECHAEA
Guillaume Endignoux
David Jaša