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Live departure board API no longer to be free?

You are here: Home > Forum > Miscellaneous > The real thing (anything else rail-oriented) > Live departure board API no longer to be free?

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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 26/10/2010 at 21:14 #1949
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Hello - I posted here a while back when I put together an implementation of the live departure board API that NRE have for years provided here:

http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldbws/

As of recently, they have added a paragraph to the above which says:

Quote:

With affect from Tuesday the 23rd of November, National Rail Enquiries will be introducing tokens in to SOAP header of the Darwin Webservice for licenced users of the system. For more information on licencing and obtaining a token, please contact xxxx@xxxx
This may just be a way of keeping tabs on use, but sounds ominously like they are trying to stop free use of the API - which would be a real pity.

A look at the NRE Ts&Cs shows an apparent (albeit rather confusing) alteration to include the use of the API:

First, the term "Web Site" is defined to include the web service API:
Quote:

Terms and Conditions for using the National Rail Enquiries website (the “Web Site”) . For the purposes of these Terms & Conditions the term Web Site also includes the web services, XML and any other data source supplying the Web Site
Then, further down that same page, it states that:
Quote:

You may not at any time modify, store, copy (including for example screen scraping), extract, reutilise, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell, distribute or create any information, products or services obtained from, linked to or using this Web Site and any data therein or that may provide users with the ability to do the same.
Now the above seems to make no sense at all - in the first para they define the term "web Site" as includiing the Web Services API, but they then state that you may not use that API to extract, reutilise, distribute, transmit, display data - which is the only purpose of an API in the first place....

I've emailed the contact given to ask for clarification, so this may just be a storm in a teacup, but it seems mighty strange...
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 26/10/2010 at 21:14 #12168
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Hello - I posted here a while back when I put together an implementation of the live departure board API that NRE have for years provided here:

http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldbws/

As of recently, they have added a paragraph to the above which says:

Quote:

With affect from Tuesday the 23rd of November, National Rail Enquiries will be introducing tokens in to SOAP header of the Darwin Webservice for licenced users of the system. For more information on licencing and obtaining a token, please contact xxxx@xxxx
This may just be a way of keeping tabs on use, but sounds ominously like they are trying to stop free use of the API - which would be a real pity.

A look at the NRE Ts&Cs shows an apparent (albeit rather confusing) alteration to include the use of the API:

First, the term "Web Site" is defined to include the web service API:
Quote:

Terms and Conditions for using the National Rail Enquiries website (the “Web Site”) . For the purposes of these Terms & Conditions the term Web Site also includes the web services, XML and any other data source supplying the Web Site
Then, further down that same page, it states that:
Quote:

You may not at any time modify, store, copy (including for example screen scraping), extract, reutilise, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell, distribute or create any information, products or services obtained from, linked to or using this Web Site and any data therein or that may provide users with the ability to do the same.
Now the above seems to make no sense at all - in the first para they define the term "web Site" as includiing the Web Services API, but they then state that you may not use that API to extract, reutilise, distribute, transmit, display data - which is the only purpose of an API in the first place....

I've emailed the contact given to ask for clarification, so this may just be a storm in a teacup, but it seems mighty strange...
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 08:22 #12178
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Oh dear...

Quote:

Dear Ben,
You have always required a licence to use NRE data services. That isn’t a change. The use you have listed below is in contravention of the T&Cs of the website and can’t be continued without a licence.

Can you please cease this use of the service and we can enter into discussions about a licence. It is likely that any licence will include a charge.

I think there is some confusion in your statement about government data. NRE is a private company with private shareholders. It is not a public body.

Kind regards
<name deleted>
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 11:23 #12179
GeoffM
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6376 posts 		Interesting, I don't remember it ever specifically stating that a license was required, however, the reproduce clause in the Ts&Cs (which I assume has always been there) would imply that permission was required. This move doesn't surprise me as it boils down to you and all other users using their feed without paying for it. Presumably you tried the FoI Act which elicited the response about NRE being a private company - the FoI Act doesn't apply to Network Rail either, as Peter Bennet well knows.

I guess your best bet now is to ask for a license and see what they say. It might be that they were only considering mass users like TheTrainLine rather than small fry like little apps, so maybe they'll reconsider smaller users if enough people ask. Bing Maps (or was it Google?), for example, had a free token/license for users with low data requirements, chargeable if you went over the limit.
SimSig Boss
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 12:44 #12183
GoochyB
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222 posts 		dbrb2 said:


As of recently, they have added a paragraph to the above which says:


With affect from Tuesday the 23rd of November, National Rail Enquiries will be introducing tokens in to SOAP header of the Darwin Webservice for licenced users of the system. For more information on licencing and obtaining a token, please contact xxxx@xxxx

Oh dear, when they are making official statements and changes to terms and conditions you would have thought that they would check whether the words they are using make sense - the effect of using the wrong word is that the ability of the reader to interpret the meaning of the statement is affected!
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 16:31 #12187
GeoffM
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6376 posts 		Apparently "affect" used in that way was reasonable in ye olde English but it is almost certain that the writer in this case used the wrong word.

Posts #1 and #4 edited to remove email address - seems their anti-spambot wasn't quite, ahem, effective enough.
SimSig Boss
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 18:22 #12188
Peter Bennet
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5402 posts 		Just to clarify- The FOI Act 2000 simply gives a right to information (from designated bodies). It does not give a right to that information in any specific format. Also there is is an exemption where the information is already available by some other means.

I suspect if NRE were subject to the Act they could reasonable say that the live running information is already available via their and TOC websites so they are not obligated to provide it to you- especially if it were part of their commercial operations. If it were part of their commercial operations there is no automatic right for you or anyone else to subscribe to that arrangement either- unless there was some competition or restrictive practise argument which might need to be investigated.

Shame really as I quite liked your site.

Peter
I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 18:33 #12189
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Actually I haven't put in an FOI request - but I think you are right that were I to it might not get me very far.

My site remains up for the moment, pending discussions with the NRE, but that may not last for long.

It seems a very strange decision - the only people who would generally be expected to want to know when trains would arrive/depart would be potential customers, or those meeting actual customers - i.e people generating revenue for the railway.

If it could be argued that sites such as mine could have any significant effect on revenue (which I doubt) then surely it could only be in a positive sense - I am more likely to board a train - having bought a ticket - if I know when it is arriving :-)

It is a bit like phoning up a shop to ask if they have goods in stock, and being told "yes, we do - but we can't tell you when our shop opens unless you pay us extra"
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 19:48 #12190
pebbens
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20 posts 		Point Of Order -- Network Rail is a publically-owned 'not for dividend' company and is a subsidary of the Department for Transport.

Considering Network Rail takes around £4billion of taxpayers' money each year, in August this year, Philip Hammond (now Transport Secy.) has said that he wants to make the FOIA apply to Network Rail, hopefully we'll have access to our state-owned rail infrastructure operator soon!
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 20:10 #12191
Danny252
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1461 posts 		pebbens said:
Point Of Order -- Network Rail is a publically-owned 'not for dividend' company and is a subsidary of the Department for Transport.
It's a private company technically, but somewhat obviously just about all it does is the same as a publically owned company (funded by the govt, debts underwritten by the govt...). Seems you can have a field day arguing over the technicalities of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail#Private_versus_public_sector_status_controversy
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 20:18 #12192
Adrian the Rock
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111 posts 		dbrb2 said:
It seems a very strange decision...

Most likely it is motivated by a concern for the load sites like yours could put on their servers, potentially leading to them slowing down and then failing to meet service levels they have agreed to contractually with their licensed users such as National Rail and the TOCs. IT services like this are not cheap to run.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if the recent requirement for authenticity tokens in the requests made to the web service has been implemented in part to enable them to track how much use each of their licensees are actually making of the service, possibly with a view to future charging for it by usage. (At the moment, without that information, they may be having to charge on the basis of estimated use.) If so, that might not actually be such bad news, in the slightly longer term, for sites like yours.

Also possibly they may have clauses in their contracts with NatR/TOCs that restrict who else may be allowed to use the service.

pebbens said:
Network Rail is a publically-owned 'not for dividend' company and is a subsidary of the Department for Transport.

It is not a subsidiary of DfT (in the normal business meaning of this term). It's a separate organisation - IIRC it's a company limited by guarantee.
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 20:43 #12194
Peter Bennet
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5402 posts 		The designation of NR as body covered by the FOI can be done under a Section 5 Order. Some of you who have been around for a while will know that I have been lobbying for such an order to be made. The last Government did a consultation on whether to invoke Section 5 and if so which bodies should be included. NR was a popular body but was ruled out for the (then) time being. I am not aware that the Order has ever been placed though.

Interesting to read that Mr Hammond has said he supports NR's inclusion. I must look into this again and maybe contact my MP- who I believe is now a Junior Minister at the Ministry of Justice.

Peter
I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 27/10/2010 at 21:33 #12197
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Quote:

Most likely it is motivated by a concern for the load sites like yours could put on their servers, potentially leading to them slowing down and then failing to meet service levels they have agreed to contractually with their licensed users such as National Rail and the TOCs. IT services like this are not cheap to run.
Perhaps - although if one considers the total number of people who can travel by train in any given day is finite, and nobody would generally want the same information from two separate sources, while additional sites like mine may spread the load, they are unlikely to significantly increase it
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 28/10/2010 at 02:01 #12206
Danny252
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1461 posts 		dbrb2 said:
Perhaps - although if one considers the total number of people who can travel by train in any given day is finite, and nobody would generally want the same information from two separate sources, while additional sites like mine may spread the load, they are unlikely to significantly increase it
Although those finite number of people can make a nearly infinite number of queries, and if the API is queried each time, then you won't "spread the load" at all.

Of course, if the data is cached and retrieved regularly every minute or similar, then the number of queries from your site wouldn't affect their server load.
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 29/10/2010 at 05:13 #12223
UKTrainMan
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1803 posts 		If, what I am now calling BBLDB :cool: , can no longer be run due to NRE's 'clamp down' then I shall miss is greatly as it's been amazingly useful to me lately.

If 'BBLDB' does have to come to an end ( ) then I would personally be tempted to send NRE a carefully/strongly worded eMail expressing my dissatisfaction that they have caused this. As I've already said in this thread, NREs own WAP site does not show platform numbers, which is extremely unhelpful to myself and I'm sure many others too. If they really want to cause 'BBLDB' 's demise then they really need to improve their own service first! It is perhaps a bit like a TOC with terrible performance figures telling (or giving advice to) another TOC with much better performance figures how to run things, yes the terribly performing TOC could still do it...but they'd probably just look ridiculous doing so.
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 departure board API no longer to be free? 01/11/2010 at 22:24 #12325
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Thanks UKTrainMan :-)

I've trawled through the API docs, and ensured that my board complies as fully as possible with their requirements- for instance I now show text (such as Delayes, On time) rather thhan always showing a time.

The NRE code of practive gives them a lot of discretion in issuing of licenses, and what they charge for them. I've asked what they expect their position to be come 23rd November (when they clamp down) - but no response as yet.

Meanwhile the london datastore, that acts as a portal fort all kinds of useful data:
http://data.london.gov.uk/
has arranged a meeting with them, so we shall see what comes out of that.

It has also been pointed out that an investigation into the availability of realtime data, carried out by the ORR last year:

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.2433

cleared ATOC of hampering competition by restricting access to it's data, but also stated:

"
Critical to this conclusion was that we found no evidence that ATOC’s conduct in granting access to Darwin had prevented a new product from coming to market or hampered the emergence of new technology
"

Based on the above, to then, 1 year later, put restrictions on the data seems a bit off. Anyway, nothing I can do now - I'll just wait on either NRE getting back to me, or the london datastore making a breakthrough :-)

Interestingly, and on a slightly different note, I've found that sometimes - for instance tonight, when the ECML is quite messed up due, it would appear, to a single incident near hartlepool, only some of the delayed services have textual descriptions for the delay available via the API, and of those that do have descriptions no two are the same.

In incidents such as this it would appear that each train company has to enter delay reasons for each of their services into a computer somewhere, which makes its way to me via the API, rather than a global "everythings messed up because" message being set for all delayed services. Does anyone know if this is correct?
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 01/11/2010 at 23:00 #12334
GeoffM
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6376 posts 		Having been in meetings with ATOC and NRE - not specifically for the API but also not far off - the reason why a train is delayed is pretty much up to the TOC/FOC. One TOC operator could legitimately enter that a train was late becase of a late inbound service; another could be more descriptive and say "due to overhead wires down in XXXX". Neither is specifically wrong but one is certainly more helpful to the average punter than the other.

Despite you attempting to make your site compliant, I assume it still has yet to comply with the license aspect. I also did query NRE on the general access issues (not your site) and have yet to receive a reply. It would be interesting to see if there are any parallels with the aviation industry.
SimSig Boss
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 01/11/2010 at 23:19 #12338
dbrb2
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21 posts 		Yes, unfortunately you are correct - I still have no license. I never have had - but NRE never seemed to mind before :-)

I have asked them if I can have a license, and under what terms, and the site will stay up till then, but if their decision is "no" or "yes with loads of cash" then it will have to come down. We shall see :-p
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 03/11/2010 at 23:14 #12369
dbrb2
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21 posts 		http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/03/ldb_api_atoc_alex_hewson_mystery/
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 05/11/2010 at 16:28 #12380
dbrb2
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21 posts 		All is forgiven - I appear to (touch wood) have a licence :-)
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 05/11/2010 at 20:00 #12382
Sacro
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1171 posts 		How do you get a licence? I could do with one for my final year project.
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 06/11/2010 at 00:16 #12384
dbrb2
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21 posts 		The live departure boards SOAP API website here:

http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldbws/

has an email address, and if you contact them with what you are doing / want to do, then they have the ability to say yay or nay :-)
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 02/12/2010 at 06:53 #12740
Peter Bennet
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5402 posts 		I see that National Rail and by extension FCC's live departure system has changed to a format I don't particularly like so thank goodness for your system which is now my default information site.

Thanks

Peter
I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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Live departure board API no longer to be free? 02/12/2010 at 10:20 #12747
nnr
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170 posts 		I think either someone must have seen this thread or someone has been checking a minion's spelling, but "affect" has been corrected to "effect"

N.
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