Why (UK) train departure information is not open data.

This is unbelievable. Do you think, if I decided to catch coaches/buses everywhere, I could get back some of the money they get from me?<p>The fact that a publicly-funded organisation refuse to allow access to data because they have been criticised is absolutely scandalous. They get our money for free then dare to get shirty about the people who are <i>funding them</i>?!!<p>The railway service in the UK is appallingly bad, the majority of the rest of Europe appear to have worked out how to actually make trains work, and yet they have the cheek to do this. Unbelievable.<p>I'd like to write an app that tracks lateness round the UK and name + shame operators who are doing poorly. I strongly suspect official results are somewhat skewed by averaging/etc., and by focusing on hotspots/representing the data differently you could get a more accurate picture. Doing so would be critical of the rail operators - would they refuse me a license? Would I have to pay for the privilege of determining how effectively my (+ the rest of the people of the UK's) money was being spent?<p>It's like handing over £50 to somebody and them charging you for the privilege.<p>£5bn a year and we still have to pay for tickets - must be nice to be in a business where you get money for free THEN GET TO CHARGE FOR YOUR SERVICE ON TOP OF IT.<p>Sorry, angry, but legitimately so I think.

I'm the Alex Hewson whose license got turned down for being critical of NRE. Backstory @ <a href="http://mocko.org.uk/b/2011/01/08/open-uk-rail-data-media-coverage-broken-appeals-process/" rel="nofollow">http://mocko.org.uk/b/2011/01/08/open-uk-rail-data-media-cov...</a><p>There hasn't been any progress since I wrote that and it really does seem that NRE are using the overly broad code of practice as a way to punish those who question their attitudes.<p>Hardly a progressive way for a body that gets a large amount of public funding to behave.

The joke of it is, if you dig around in the Live Departure Boards website you'll see that they hook into an API here ..<p><a href="http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/ldb/liveTrainsJson?departing=true&#38;liveTrainsFrom=WAE&#38;liveTrainsTo=&#38;serviceId=" rel="nofollow">http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/ldb/liveTrainsJson?depart...</a><p>.. which is, basically, open for everybody to use (in the sense that it requires no authentication). I use it myself to push live data to my mobile phone from my desktop PC.

There are two further elements of this discussion that the article misses.<p>One is the fundamental approach to maximising value from government-created works. Traditionally, the Crown owns the copyright and then sells them to maximise revenue. The US approach is to make it public domain.<p>The second issue is that the bar for a creative work covered by copyright is much lower in the UK than in the US. The notorious case is football schedules which are copyrighted, but it also applies to cinema and train times.

There has been a similar debate in Norway. According to law the public should have free access to databases that is founded in companies that are own by the public.<p>Companies with a monopoly or companies that have a political purpose and is founded by the public would also be covered by the law of free access to databases.<p>The company responsible for departure information in Oslo was very early with open APIs and giving access to developers. Only clausal was that you couldn't use it for commercial work. A couple of months ago they also removed this clausal so now it's free, even for commercial usage. More info here: <a href="http://bit.ly/iq1pbT" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/iq1pbT</a> (google translate)

When the trains are consistently late, the train company must refund a portion of the money that rail ticket holders pay.<p>If the data was open, this process would become automated and cost the train companies lots of money.

I'd have thought the answer is quangos.<p>But then I still don't understand why we, taxpayers, pay money to companies that pay out profits. Loans, fine, but why are we paying money that just leaks out in to shareholders bank accounts instead of being spent on transport and its infrastructure.

The data is not inaccessible because it is a private company. It is because they do not believe it to be in their business interest to make it accessible.<p>Why that is the case is the real question.<p>Surely the (presumably small amount of) money they raise from api subscriptions and app sales (minus the development cost) would be hugely outweighed by the increase in ticket sales + reduced dev cost from making the data accessible.

I was actually angry when they revoked the licence for MyRail then introduced a £5 app that did less under a different brand... I still haven't bought it

The tube (which i use about once a year) is considerably better at this (different, tighter consortiums). There are a bunch of good apps like Tube Boards and Tube Status (if I used it more I'd pay for some). Even just that, the current 30mins of the timetable, and any delays as a whole, would be a big improvement on what there is now - announcements on the platform.

Just a thought.<p>1. Is data copyrightable, patentable or a trade secret? If not, follow the next steps.<p>2. Contact as much open-minded licensees as possible and persuade them to leak the data.<p>3. Build a service to collect the leaked data, collide several samples from varying origins to remove any "watermarks" (and constantly monitor for them), and publish it.<p>4. If the condition (1) stands true, the leak service should be legal (IMNAL), and service provider can't be obliged to say who's leaking the data.<p>5. ...<p>6. PROFIT^W PROTEST!<p>Childish, and somehow risky (the (2) is tricky), but given enough power, the information could be made public.<p>If the departure times are copyrightable — there's something really wrong with copyright system.

If you are interested in transit-related information access, consider signing up for the very low-traffic but occasionally interesting Transit Developers group.<p><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers" rel="nofollow">http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers</a>

I wrote to my local MP about this issue and only got a pre-canned response back. As this only affects the public indirectly there's simply no pressure to change the status quo; priority will always be given to delays and capacity.