Iain Wilkie Logan wrote:
1. The planner does not contain details of local buses in England and Wales
and can only be used in its full multi-modal capacity for journeys wholly
within or between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle
of Man. For both timetable and fares information we can only display the
information that we can source.

If you're feeling adventurous, you could source local bus information
by downloading timetable PDFs off (say) Arriva/Stagecoach/First's
website, and scraping them to extract the times.

[...]
Worth a visit: http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/ 'Free Our Data Campaign'

Yes, it's depressing that the PT industry treats its
timetable/availability data as a marketable asset, rather than a
publically available dataset which would encourage more people to
travel by bus or train.

Richard

In message , at 13:38:36 on Sat, 9
Sep 2006, Iain Wilkie Logan remarked:

please go to our site and try out our planner for yourself

A few constructive criticisms.

1) I entered my Town (West Bridgford) and it isn't listed in the
drop-down list. Nor is there an entry for "none of the above".
The only way to review my selection seems to be to press the
Browser "back" button, which is inelegant. (Transport Direct
does list West Bridgford).

2) I'm going to Stansted Airport (for no better reason than that's
where I drove to yesterday). I know it's a Sunday (and trains
are a bit dodgy) but it only shows routes via London, and
therefore much more expensive than via Ely. Perhaps I should
have the choice of "Not via London", and "Cheapest", as well as
your assumption that I want "fastest".

One of the suggestions is a coach (which is good) but pressing
the "fares" button gives no results.

I'm impressed that you seem to know what platform a train will
arrive at Kings Cross - the station announcers often don't,
until a few minutes beforehand.

3) Trying Melton Mowbray (the only nearby place for a through-train
on a weekday evening), you suggest going via Leicester, which is
the opposite direction to normal. OK, if it's faster at that
particular time I suppose it's OK, but have you checked this
with the routing guide?

4) So let's check "Foxton to London"... but this defaults to
"London Bridge LU", and I apparently need to know which terminus
I'll be arriving at (how does that work for places with two
terminii, such as Cambridge to KX and LS). [ps What's "Larkhill
London St Cadzow St"??]

... and Ooops, it suggests a trip via Cambridge, which is
doubling back and not a permitted route.

5) A famous problem with Cambridge Station to Newmarket (in
Transport Direct) seems to be repeated in your planner. If you
specify the destination as Newmarket Bus Station, it completely
ignores the direct train (21 minutes) plus a few minutes walk in
Newmarket, preferring: Walk to Cambridge Bus Station (25 mins)
then a further over 3 hours getting coaches via Stansted [yes,
that place again].

That'll do for now.
--
Roland Perry

On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:15:14 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

I'm impressed that you seem to know what platform a train will
arrive at Kings Cross - the station announcers often don't,
until a few minutes beforehand.

Well every train has a particular booked platform in the full
timetable (differing public editions of the timetable info may not
show this data though). Things may get swapped around last minute some
days but that should only be when things are going wrong and
departures are late.

There used to be a monitor a little way down one of the platforms that
was for the station staff that showed the anticipated platform, ages
before (30-60 mins) the public display did, I always used to wander
over and check it out - but I think they took it away now.

Pretty sure they just choose not to announce it at KX until the last
minute to avoid mad dashes of departing passengers or huge crowds of
meeters and greeters.

Iain Wilkie Logan wrote:

The Original and Best UK Journey Planner

Haven't looked at the system, but if you ever want coverage anywhere
(apart from when posting ads on newsgroups), please drop the 'original
and best' bit.

If we ever get a press release that starts with "world's first"
"original" or "best" it's bound to be ignored! In most cases the
product or service isn't the first in the world, totally original or
the best!

Jonathan

On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 13:38:36 +0100, Iain Wilkie Logan
wrote:


Please visit http://www.planajourney.co.uk/ where you will find our
multi-modal journey planning alternative to 'Transport Direct'.

The September 15th issue of 'Bus and Coach Professional' will contain a
comprehensive feature article on our system.

Ironic then that it doesn't seem to know about any buses at all.
Doesn't know any of the regular public buses that I get in London or
Newcastle.

Also I tested it with Kensington Olympia (LU) to Shepherd's Bush (LU).
Now anybody that knows the area would walk it or perhaps get the bus
between the two, but I suppose it can be forgiven for suggesting a 53
minute tube route - however it priced the journey at £6.00 when it
should only be £3.00 - it counted two of the three tube segments as
separate journeys for some reason!

"Peter Frimberley" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 13:38:36 +0100, Iain Wilkie Logan
wrote:


Please visit http://www.planajourney.co.uk/ where you will find our
multi-modal journey planning alternative to 'Transport Direct'.

The September 15th issue of 'Bus and Coach Professional' will contain a
comprehensive feature article on our system.

Ironic then that it doesn't seem to know about any buses at all.
Doesn't know any of the regular public buses that I get in London or
Newcastle.

Indeed, what is the point of this?

First two trials I make :

Hungerford to Swindon tomorrow - by train it offers a reasonable response;
by bus, offers only a journey via Heathrow. In fact, there is a regular
interval direct bus service between these two towns. As far as I can see,
there's nothing on the site to indicate that the absence of an offer doesn't
imply the absence of a service - and I can't see a list of which operators
it covers - which makes it utterly useless as a "multi-mode" service

Bath to Swindon tonight - although it seems to understand that engineering
work interrupts the advertised service it hasn't got details of the
replacement buses. So it offers only a ridiculous journy via Newport and
Gloucester.

And no wonder they're touting for business.. SMS messages cost 25p plus the
standard charge. As far as I can see, I can get better answers from the
National Rail service, and I can get it via WAP on my mobile for nothing but
a trivial standard data charge

Walter Man

Iain Wilkie Logan wrote in
:

http://www.planajourney.co.uk/

Well, it turns my journey from a 25 minute car/15 minute motorbike
journey into a 2-3 hour nightmare, with no guarantee I will be in time
to start my shift, and that is just Mon-Fri. On Sat-Sun, I might as well
phone in sick, because I's be sacked for my time-keeping.
Working a 12 hour shift, I'd be very miffed to put another 6 hours
travel time on my day.
Your site just shows up what a load of ******** public transport is
compared to using ones own initiative. I appreciate public transport may
not be the best thing for my own circumstances, but people shoving it
down my throat as the be all and end all of saving the planet just
sticks in the self same throat. The other answer often given me is car
sharing. I know no one else who works the same shifts as me, travels the
same way, geographically,or would be prepared to wait around when it was
their turn to share, even in the same company I work for, or any company
in a fifty mile radius.
If you can get the sheep to follow your herd, good luck to you. Don't
expect this goat to follow.
At the best I could hope for more clear roads, with less car users, ie.
the people who can barely drive, but use a car for convenience to the
detriment of people who can actually drive a car with pride in their
skills.


--
Tunku

"end user" v. A command regrettably not implemented in most systems.

Iain Wilkie Logan wrote in
:


The Original and Best UK Journey Planner


On just one simple trial - refuses to acknowledge that Leicester Forest
East (LFE) is anything other than a motorway service area (it is a suburb
of Leicester - as is Leicester Forest West - also missing). It has also
wiped Walsgrave Hospital (Coventry) off the map!
A journey (any mode) from LFE to Walsgrave Hospital sent me via Gatwick by
coach. (Stagecoach 48 bus to Coventry, then bus to the hospital)
Must try harder.

In message , at 09:17:39 on Mon, 11
Sep 2006, Mike the unimaginative remarked:
On just one simple trial - refuses to acknowledge that Leicester Forest
East (LFE) is anything other than a motorway service area (it is a suburb
of Leicester - as is Leicester Forest West - also missing). It has also
wiped Walsgrave Hospital (Coventry) off the map!
A journey (any mode) from LFE to Walsgrave Hospital sent me via Gatwick by
coach. (Stagecoach 48 bus to Coventry, then bus to the hospital)
Must try harder.

I'm hoping the author can come back and answer some of these criticisms.
But it appears that:

The planner only recognises places served by trains (including LUL) and
long distance coaches, and mainly suggests travel only by these modes.

It has some "walks" between nearby coach and train stations, but not all
of them.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:

The planner only recognises places served by trains (including LUL) and
long distance coaches, and mainly suggests travel only by these modes.

Not quite - if you travel from Edinburgh it starts at the bus station
even when the whole of the journey is by train.

Sam