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Live Arrivals and Departures Board

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 11/09/2010 at 09:01 #1744
BarryM
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2158 posts
This should be handy for new current timetables
http://trains.bbarker.co.uk/

BarryM

Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 11/09/2010 at 09:01 #11379
BarryM
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2158 posts
This should be handy for new current timetables
http://trains.bbarker.co.uk/

BarryM

Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 11/09/2010 at 17:05 #11387
Danny252
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1461 posts
Or just use National Rail's service, which gives the same info and has been around for ages, but is in a somewhat less garish colour scheme: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ldb/

Not surprised if it just pulls the info off the NR website, seeing as it is actually identical info.

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 11/09/2010 at 17:23 #11388
Sacro
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1171 posts
Yeah, it's using the National Rail API, alright for public times but not really enough information for building a WTT.
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 02:08 #11397
UKTrainMan
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1803 posts
I actually quite like it, seems to run better than National Rail Enquiries' LDB at times...and I don't have to wait for some silly thing to open on the website before I can see the train times - it just loads the page itself and there is the information. Reminds me of National Rail Enquiries' own WAP (Mobile Internet) site, wap.nationalrail.co.uk, in the way that it's all text based. In-fact it'd probably work on my phone too (this alternative LDB, not the 'official' one) meaning I can go straight to the departure board instead of having to follow a link to it first.

Thanks for posting/sharing.

to clarify my first sentence, with NRE's/NREs' own WAP site, you have to click on the "Live Departures" or "Live Arrivals" link, wait for the next page to load, then enter the station name then you have to click on another link for the actual LDB to load so you can see the information.

Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for.
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 05:06 #11398
BarryM
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2158 posts
Sacro said:
alright for public times but not really enough information for building a WTT

It is good for those of us that do not have access to working timetables. Every station can be accessed and platform details are shown.

BarryM

Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 06:10 #11400
Tallington
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254 posts
Not quite!
Try Derby or Matlock...
and no doubt many others!
Ken

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 06:46 #11402
BarryM
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2158 posts
Tallington said:
Not quite!
Try Derby or Matlock...
and no doubt many others!
They work fine on mine Ken. Try typing in the first three letters.

Barry

Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 14:17 #11406
Sacro
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1171 posts
Matlock only has one platform Ken!

Here is Derby.

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 20:19 #11411
Tallington
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254 posts
Thanks for the links and yes it did work - THIS time! But you shouldn't have to put in DBY !

The first time I tried 'Derby' it gave other options but not Derby itself.
Likewise 'Matlock' only gave Matlock Bath as an option but now does say both.
AND Stamford didn't come up as an option but now does! Very odd.... ::

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 12/09/2010 at 23:16 #11420
dbrb2
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21 posts
Yes - there was a problem with the way that results were processed around when an ambiguous search term was entered, so that annoyingly the first result wasn't actually printed to screen. This is now fixed :-)

Annoyingly while the NRE API requires crs codes to query, it does not provide a call to give a dump of all CRS codes mapped to station name - so I rely on my own table for that. Luckily stations aren't built or renamed that regularly, so this data is pretty static.

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 05/10/2010 at 00:27 #11862
UKTrainMan
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1803 posts
Just tested this out on my mobile phone and it even works on that!

In-fact it's currently proving to be better than National Rail Enquiries' WAP site as it shows the platform numbers, so I could perhaps be deep in the Weatherspoons bar at London Victoria station and could be finding out what platform my train is on, therefore pretty much skipping the need to look at the actual departure board on the concourse, except to perhaps check everything is 'all good'.

Really liking it now :cool:

Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for.
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 05/10/2010 at 16:50 #11873
jc92
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3685 posts
Sacro said:
alright for public times but not really enough information for building a WTT


i have the staff version available and that does include timing points, junctions and any actions such as joins

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 05/10/2010 at 17:08 #11876
John
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884 posts
The staff version's brilliant, and is particularly useful as it works on the mobile!
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 05/10/2010 at 17:28 #11878
dbrb2
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21 posts
Yes - the public API is a bit limited. I am just finishing a slightly improved version that, for service status, will give a summary text along the lines of:

5 minutes out of Kings Cross
Next stop <wherever> in 12 minutes
This service terminates in <somewhere>

Splitting / Joining trains is where things get (potentially) really complex in the code. I have had to assume for the sake of my sanity that a train can be made up of any number of joining services, and can itself split to send portions to any number of destinations, but that these joining / splitting trains can not themselves have any joins or splits.

This seems to work for all the examples I have found so far, and the amount of code needed to deal with unlimited levels of splitting would be nasty.

What is unfortunate is that the API does not allow querying by a particular service, merely by a combination of station and service. So if I see a train on the departures board at KGX for Edinburgh, I can use the API to retrieve information on where it will stop and when. However, once it has left KGX, short of trying each station along the route till I find a board the train is on, I can't retrieve its current status.

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 06/10/2010 at 10:49 #11884
Sacro
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The ServiceItem has a serviceID which can be plugged into GetServiceDetails, just cache it somewhere or something.
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 06/10/2010 at 11:04 #11885
dbrb2
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21 posts
Yes, there is a serviceID, but it is a bit misleading.

The serviceID is both station and service specific.

For example:
Using the API I can request the departures board for KGX, and each entry will have an associated serviceID.
BUT
Once a particular service has left KGX and no longer appears on the departures board returned by the API for that station, that serviceID will no longer return any data.

The only way then to find the status of that train would be to find a board further along the services route that it did still appear on, get the associated serviceID, and run a new query with the new ID.

So for example a train on the board at KGX to edinburgh may have a service ID 12345, and if I query the API using service ID 12345 I will get the status for that service.

However - once that train has left KGX and the service is not longer returned by a call to the API to return the KGX departures board, then a call to the API using the service ID 12345 will fail - even though the train hasn't yet reachjed its destination.

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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 25/03/2011 at 01:20 #14214
UKTrainMan
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1803 posts
Whilst I'm not always keen on reviving old threads, I just wanted to share a further example of how useful this is from my own recent experience.

I was waiting at one of the many mainline terminus stations here in London for a train that was yet to have it's platform shown / announced. For some reason or other I decided to go to 'BBLDB' (my name for this) and looked up trains at this station, found my train and to my surprise the platform was listed! I went towards the platform, which has a conveniently placed basic departures board near it covering all trains from the station and waited there watching it in-case it changed last minute but as I was both hoping and expecting it didn't change, so a few footsteps or so later I was aboard the train and sitting comfortably in the seat of my choice for the journey.

Excellent stuff :cool:

Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for.
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Live Arrivals and Departures Board 25/03/2011 at 06:46 #14216
Peter Bennet
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5402 posts
UKTrainMan said:
Whilst I'm not always keen on reviving old threads, I just wanted to share a further example of how useful this is from my own recent experience.
I'd rather you did that than start a completely new thread on the same topic which would be silly.

That why I specifically phrased rule 10 the way I did.
"10) Bumping: Don’t post to an old topic simply for the purpose of keeping it alive. But if you have something useful to add then it is preferable to add to an existing topic (no matter how old) than start the same or similar topic again."

Peter

I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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