National Rail Have Killed My UK Train Times App | Hacker News Reader

National Rail Have Killed My UK Train Times App

mocko.org.uk

86 pointsmocko26 comments

Talk about Old Skool British behaviour. I grew up with this mentality and have been merrily waving it goodbye for the past couple of decades.

As well as the suggestions in the article's comments, I'd drop a tweet to Glynn Moody (@glynmoody) who will certainly take this on. Also worthwhile tweeting would be Tim Danton (@timdanton) editor of PCPro (for USians, that's the UK's main commercial tech mag), and also Tom Watson (@tom_watson) our "Uber Geek in Parliament".

No harm in getting a petition going at Number10 and maybe asking the Open Rights Group (@OpenRightsGroup) to get involved and start a campaign of lobbying MPs.

In addition, open data is huge in the Euro Parliament, so write to all you MEPs via http://www.writetothem.com/

Don't ignore the latter, my experience with my MEPs has been excellent. One even sends a weekly newsletter giving his diary, what occurred, and what he's up to next. Once you engage with these folk, things really can start happening.

We need to fight to keep public data available, and there's loads of support in the places where it matters, so just start making some noise and you'll soon have your app back working, and hopefully you additional app too.

Problem is it's an association of private companies. Maybe a better way is to pressure the government Network Rail to offer a similar service, as they also have the information.

I fought this same issue with Routesy, my SF iPhone app, in 2009. Getting agencies to be smart about making data open is a challenge, but a lot of cities are coming around.

Once agencies realize that they can not make a killing off apps and that they're better off having developers make great apps that increase ridership by making the systems less awful to ride, everybody wins.

If you're curious about the story of my battle and how I had to get a lawyer involved to get Apple to let my app back into the store, check this out: http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/06/who-owns-sfmta-arrival-data...

There seems to be a trend emerging where companies/organistions are killing off APIs with no warning, and the consumer of the API is powerless.

I blogged about this recently http://andysinclair.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/your-api-killed... as I was very annoyed that TFL (London's transport network) disabled one of their APIs which stopped 2 very popular iPhone applications from working.

Could this be because of the change of government? The new government is dismantling all sorts of other central government internet projects - perhaps the data providers who were being pressured into making their feeds available are spotting a change in the political climate and a chance to keep the profits in-house.

I'm not so sure, I think it more a case of lots of these APIs and open data projects exist as "side projects" and do not receive the full backing and resources of the department/organisation.

I followed up the story of TFL and it turns out that the API stopped working because of a security patch that was applied, rather than more sinister reasons.

So mock their API with BeautifulSoup or Hpricot :-)

Way to go. Just host it in a safe country, like Turkey.

I wrote to my MP about this very issue a couple of months ago, explaining that ATOC are abusing their position by making sure that their £4.99 iPhone app is the only option available. At the time I wanted to build something for Android, but was put off by cases just like this one. Here's the reply:

"Dear Mr ,

Thank you for your e-mail of the 23 August.

The ORR regularly monitors Network Rail's operations both annually and more comprehensively periodically. Network Rail operates under a network licence. This licence contains a set of conditions under which Network Rail must operate. Network Rail is also accountable under its licence. The ORR's monitoring and enforcement of Network Rail operates under a regulatory framework designed to provide effective incentives, rewarding Network Rail for doing a good job. Where necessary, the ORR may enforce compliance with the network licence if Network Rail fails to fulfil its obligations, and we may also impose monetary penalties.

As the monopoly owner and operator of the UK rail network, it has control over timetabling and its relevant data. As you highlight, ATOC use this data for its National Rail Enquiries services, in agreement with Network Rail. Distribution of this information is at the discretion of Network Rail.

Its funding is derived from track access charges and station leases. It also gets a Government grant based on network improvements agreed with the Department for Transport. All funding information can be found on Network Rail's website (www.networkrail.co.uk) whilst all reviews from the ORR can be found on its website (www.rail-reg.gov.uk).

Thank you for taking the trouble to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Richard Benyon MP"

tl;dr: Network Rail operates under a network license and is regulated by the ORR (i.e. it's effectively government controlled) but that license says that they can distribute data however they see fit.

I forgot to mention: in a week or so I'm meeting the guy at Directgov responsible for data.gov.uk (for something at work and totally unrelated). I'll be sure to bring this up and see if he can help out.

Thanks, I'd really appreciate that. ATOC's attitude really stinks. If you want to get in touch directly I'm mock at mocko.org.uk.

They killed off MyRail Lite ages ago as well: http://www.bluesnapper.com/blog/stuff/kizoom-myrail-lite-gon...

Hello. I suggest you try and contact people on and around the Transparency Board: data.gov.uk. @rchards supports the board and @nigel_shadbolt is on it, @countculture is also a good bet. Drop me a line matthew at refute.me.uk if you need some email addresses.

Send this to Private eye - they love a well-documented case of bureaucratic bumbling like yours.

I just opened the letters page of UK Wired Magazine and there's a letter from the chief executive of National Rail Enquiries (Chris Scoggins) pledging to open up their data.

I'm sure that Wired would be interested in your story, and it's worth trying to contact Mr Scoggins directly.

(I'm not a regular Wired reader, but it seems this is in response to a letter published in the 09.10 edition)

Hi omh. That looks like an awesome point of contact. I can't find a letters page on their website, is his letter online anywhere?

I don't think it's online, and unfortunately i've now lost my copy of the magazine. It looks like part of an ongoing discussion though, so contacting Wired to get the whole storyis probably best. Good luck!

I went out and bought a copy this morning :) Fascinating letter, the chief executive's commitment to opening data feeds is completely at odds with what they're doing here. I've left a comment on his blog post at https://nationalrailenquiries.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/146/ so let's see if it elicits a response.

Now that I'm back at a computer, I found the 'From the Editor' letter that he was responding to:

http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/09/start/...

It's entirely because they must be making a killing off their paid-for app and don't want you to offer a free alternative. How horrid.

Guys, before rounding up a mob, please try to find out the story from the other side as well. To put it simply there was a complaint about Tfl killing an app last week or something, AFAIK that developer didn't get permission to use the data whether or not it was publicly available or whomever used that data. It states in Tfl's website that written permission is required for certain things and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get such permissions. In the article I noticed slight whining about other people doing the same thing which is (slightly)comparable to illegal downloading of films, countless people do it, but ultimately you have to seek permission from the content providers as you're utiliing their services.

Quite.

One can't blame companies for being a bit protective of their timetable data. If this kind of data escapes into the wild there's a genuine risk of what is known in the biz as 'having more customers'. When this happens there's a whole knock on series of problems that the companies need to deal with, not least of which is 'working out what to do with all the extra money'.

I think perhaps this chap didn't consider these factors when he cooked up his little application. Will he be stumping up to repair any tracks that get worn out earlier due to increased passenger numbers? I think not.

I catch your obvious double meaning, but it's worth pointing out again that these institutions get a lot of tax money, so we most definitely do have to stump up extra when tracks need repairing.

Good point - the bastards have even less justification in hoarding the precious precious data.

I think you is-understood my post. My point was basically: before jumping t concluions, try to understand the whole story first because it's easy to complain. Whether or not that complaint is justified or not is irrelevant. What atters is whether or not proper procedure was followed. From experience, complaint usually comes before clarification.

I suspect sarcasm is never lost on you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com