'The NTA Journey Planner is a complete mess'

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 06:08PM #1

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result. Is it an overegged bus bias creating garbage in, garbage out? Looks like those settings can't be tweaked that easily. In the meantime, you'll still look in vain for accurate bus times on the planner between East Inishowen and Derry.

https://irishrailwaydevelopments.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/the-nta-journey-planner-is-a-complete-mess/

Wheety · 11-09-2017 06:11PM

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 06:15PM

Wheety wrote: »

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

I personally would have no confidence in the presumably expensively maintained a-b.ie if it gets really basic things wrong. I'll give Google Maps the once over regarding my local buses and see if it gets that right.

devnull · 11-09-2017 06:31PM

Banjoxed wrote: »

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result. Is it an overegged bus bias creating garbage in, garbage out?

Route planners by their nature offer very specific and very detailed route planning options and the information that they give out will be more accurate the more detailed information that someone puts in to them.

Unfortunately it seems in this case it seems the author of that article has not put very specific information into the journey planner and has instead inserted simply Dublin into the from part and Belfast into the to part which is pretty ambigious.

Therefore with very vague information inserted in by the user, the system has to have a guess at where the user means, so a fair guess of that would be the middle of each city center because of the lack of information being supplied by the user.

The fact that the walk through Belfast Central to what could be deemed as the city center takes approx 15-20 minutes means that once you add this in, the option it suggests with changes actually is quicker when basing the start of the journey at Dublin City Center to Belfast City Center.

As for the reason that the Translink journey planner does not show the same bus, easy answer. The Translink Journey Planner does not show all services operated by Bus Eireann cross border.

devnull · 11-09-2017 06:33PM

Banjoxed wrote: »

I personally would have no confidence in the presumably expensively maintained a-b.ie if it gets really basic things wrong. I'll give Google Maps the once over regarding my local buses and see if it gets that right.

If you try puttng specific information in rather than a vague name of a city, you'll find that it works much better.

'Dublin' or 'Belfast' is hugely ambigious, it's a journey planner and by journey it means door to door, so best type in where your journey starts and where your journey ends, rather than simply a city name which could mean anywhere in the whole city.

It's called a journey planner, not a stop to stop or station to station planner so it just goes for the fastest possible route between two places, since normally people will always want to see the fastest route rather than the one with fewest changes.

If you want one with the fewest changes, then there is an option for that - the one thing I would like to see changed on the journey planner however is that the advanced options pane allowing you to select fewest changes / fastest route etc, is open by default.

Victor · 11-09-2017 07:01PM

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

Banjoxed wrote: »

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result.

The others have addressed this. The author there appears not to understand how journey planners work.

Is it an overegged bus bias

There is no bus bias. The journey planner returned the fastest journey, based on the information it had. That information (not the journey planner) appears to be wrong.

creating garbage in, garbage out?

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus Éireann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

Looks like those settings can't be tweaked that easily.

Just select "Trip options" and de-select bus.

In the meantime, you'll still look in vain for accurate bus times on the planner between East Inishowen and Derry.

Have you reported this? Which operator(s)?

devnull · 11-09-2017 07:13PM

Wheety wrote: »

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

Good luck with that.

Google calculations work exactly the same as the NTA Journey Planner, it won't recommend the train for 9:15 in the morning departure if you specify simply Belfast because again city center to city center the bus is quicker.

If you specify somewhere somewhere specifically nearer the train station than the city center it will recommend the train however over the bus.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 07:21PM

Victor wrote: »

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

The others have addressed this. The author there appears not to understand how journey planners work.

There is no bus bias. The journey planner returned the fastest journey, based on the information it had. That information (not the journey planner) appears to be wrong.

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus Éireann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

Just select "Trip options" and de-select bus.

Have you reported this? Which operator(s)?

I have - Last year. Never acted on. Foylecoaches.com and Inishowen Rural Transport have accurate information though.

rebel456 · 11-09-2017 07:24PM

Issue seems to be where the location of the 'Belfast' marker is as it appears the bus drop off is closer thus giving those options. It could also be that some local services in NI are not loaded as well as Dublin Bus.

I did input Dublin to Albert Clock it gave me a route taking the Enterprise and walking.

Another issue might be that the train is not that frequent so it looks departures sooner via bus.

I think it's a decent journey planner but 99% of time I use Google Maps.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 07:29PM

This journey is a bizarre mess.

The Squealin' Pig in Muff, Co. Donegal is a public transport marker on a-b.ie.

Doing a straight forward enough journey via Derry to Leixlip has some fictitious elements to it, specifically BÉ route 64 which now appears to have a non-stop extra leg to the Falls in Belfast.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 07:44PM

There is another impossible bus routing.

There is a frequent bus from Newry to Belfast that stops in the Falls, and takes half an hour to Belfast from Newry - via Dundalk.

Is this test data that was left in the live data?

Bit sloppy if it was.

devnull · 11-09-2017 07:58PM

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out, the journey planner is going on the data it has which seems to be incorrect, in fact a lot of cross border routes by Bus Eireann appear to have stops in their dataset which they don't actually serve. Doesn't seem to effect other operators.

It's like someone was using a template file for the data and forgot to remove the details from the template file rather than creating a new file from scratch.

This for example is the data that it's working off for the 64 route. Note the random stop in Belfast.

Victor · 11-09-2017 08:03PM

Banjoxed wrote: »

There is a frequent bus from Newry to Belfast that stops in the Falls, and takes half an hour to Belfast from Newry - via Dundalk.

That's the same route and dud stop as on Irish Railway Developments blog. There are actually 3 spurious Belfast stops added to that route.

The common factor appears to be Bus Éireann.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 08:07PM

devnull wrote: »

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out, the journey planner is going on the data it has which seems to be incorrect, in fact a lot of cross border routes by Bus Eireann appear to have stops in their dataset which they don't actually serve. Doesn't seem to effect other operators.

It's like someone was using a template file for the data and forgot to remove the details from the template file rather than creating a new file from scratch.

This for example is the data that it's working off for the 64 route. Note the random stop in Belfast.

Thanks very much for that. I recall seeing a phantom Dublin Bus route 86 on the data before - but it seems to be gone now. There must be a number of glitches on the data, especially on the cross border routings.

As an aside, Translink offers links to ROI travel data on the turn of a button on their planner, but it is a module off the Transport for Ireland site. Interesting to see the accuracy of that..

devnull · 11-09-2017 08:10PM

Victor wrote: »

That's teh same dud stop as on Irish Railway Developments.

The common factor appears to be Bus Éireann.

160 route has weird extra stops in Belfast too

See here and note the weird orphaned 3 stops in Belfast.

If you go to the route maps tab, and type the route number in, you can see the route as it is in the database.

ED E · 11-09-2017 08:21PM

That one in east belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640

Another belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642

Newry Bus Centre

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641

See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

Victor · 11-09-2017 08:27PM

ED E wrote: »

That one in east belfast

[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[/noparse]0[noparse]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640[/noparse]

Another belfast

[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[/noparse]0[noparse]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642[/noparse]

Newry Bus Centre
[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641[/noparse]

See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

[noparse]

[/noparse] doesn't allow bold

Victor · 11-09-2017 08:37PM

Banjoxed wrote: »

I have - Last year. Never acted on. Foylecoaches.com and Inishowen Rural Transport have accurate information though.

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

XPS_Zero · 11-09-2017 08:47PM

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app

The Translink app is actually better in my experience as a frequent traveler in the north. It will allow you to plan trips from Dublin to beyond Belfast or to stations like Lisburn whereas the Irish Rail or NTA planner will just get confused and tell you those stations don't exist...even though Irish Rails own ticket machines have codes for them and can sell you a ticket for them in the booking office.

Which brings up another stupid anomaly, I can get a Dublin Connoly to Bangor train ticket in Connolly Booking office but I can't buy one online. I can get a complete journey ticket from my local DART station to Bangor or Lisburn...but I can't buy it online. This day in age it's absurd that the same options available at the ticket desk are not available online.

devnull · 11-09-2017 08:52PM

XPS_Zero wrote: »

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app.

It's not designed to give the shortest route, it's designed to give the quickest route even if that may involve a few more changes to make it quicker. Note that the Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann information is based on historical information gathered from actual bus running rather than what the timetable says, for this reason it will make the appropriate allowances for peak traffic etc.

The Dublin Bus one is awful, it's not even a journey planner, it's a stop to stop planner and the Irish Rail one also isn't a journey planner, it's a station to station planner which is a very different thing, the idea with journey planners is to take someone all the way from where they are down to a road name exactly to the place they want to go to, not just tell them how to get from one bus stop or train station to another.

Victor · 11-09-2017 08:52PM

XPS_Zero wrote: »

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app

Click on "Trip options", then "Public transport" and at "Route options" you can select "routes with fewest changes", but this won't always be the fastest route.

Banjoxed · 11-09-2017 08:52PM

Victor wrote: »

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

Well they certainly seem to be running buses past my house.

devnull · 11-09-2017 08:59PM

Victor wrote: »

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

For cross border services they are subject to EU regulations and a route license does not need to be issues, instead they need to apply for a community authorisation and these would therefore not be listed on the NTA list of licenses, just like the Aircoach 705X isn't.

To get a community authorisation you have to agree to the EU legislation and get a member state to validate it, it can be at either end of the route. It is entirely possible that Foyle got the validation at the NI end for the other routes and the only thing they need to arange in ROI is access to stops which is done through the local authority.

However if they had this set-up they would still need a route license for the portion within the ROI to pick up and set-down passengers within ROI that are not being carried cross border.

XPS_Zero · 11-09-2017 09:03PM

devnull wrote: »

It's not designed to give the shortest route, it's designed to give the quickest route even if that may involve a few more changes to make it quicker. Note that the Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann information is based on historical information gathered from actual bus running rather than what the timetable says, for this reason it will make the appropriate allowances for peak traffic etc.

The Dublin Bus one is awful, it's not even a journey planner, it's a stop to stop planner and the Irish Rail one also isn't a journey planner, it's a station to station planner which is a very different thing, the idea with journey planners is to take someone all the way from where they are down to a road name exactly to the place they want to go to, not just tell them how to get from one bus stop or train station to another.

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

This was a year ago it may have improved since but I remember thinking how totally irrational it was, even just based on time (not to mention cost)

devnull · 11-09-2017 09:11PM

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

You have to remember that the journey planning is real time journey planning based on the time and date that you put into it, it is not a general planner for how to get to somewhere at any time of day, it's based on the time you put in.

For example if you put in 9.00am the clock starts counting at 9.00am according to the journey planner. If you can get a bus at 9:05 via a number of connections and arrive at 10:15 it will suggest you this over a faster method that leaves at 9:25 and arrives at 10:25 because it arrives sooner.

The journey planner's logic is that if you insert a time into it, it finds the earliest that it can get to your destination based on your start time. This may involve longer trips but ultimately means that you arrive at your destination earlier.

Victor · 11-09-2017 09:14PM

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

This was a year ago it may have improved since but I remember thinking how totally irrational it was, even just based on time (not to mention cost)

That may have been dependent on where in Killiney and time of day.

ED E · 12-09-2017 12:15AM

Victor wrote: »
[noparse]
[/noparse] doesn't allow bold

Oh [B]yes[/B] it [B]does[/B]

(Its just not as clear)

dfx- · 12-09-2017 01:51AM

Victor wrote: »

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus reann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

It's the NTAs problem. Why isn't the NTA checking the accuracy of the data? It seems you've spotted it in that short paragraph, why can't they?

Victor · 12-09-2017 06:36AM

dfx- wrote: »

It's the NTAs problem.

Maybe their problem, but the operators' fault.

dfx- wrote: »

Why isn't the NTA checking the accuracy of the data?

They do, but it's a lot of data, some of which changes regularly. There is only so much that a team of 3-4 can do to balance the quality control vagaries that emit from CIÉ.

dfx- wrote: »

It seems you've spotted it in that short paragraph, why can't they?

They do, but note that outside the operators and the journey planner team, I'm probably the person most familiar with the journey planner.

Victor · 12-09-2017 06:37AM

ED E wrote: »

That one in east belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640

Another belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642

Newry Bus Centre

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641

See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

What does that code mean, do you know?

Carawaystick · 13-09-2017 12:20AM

devnull wrote: »

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out

A poster referring to bad data using bad data to refer to a transport company.
There is no such thing as Bus Eireann.

I presume Bus Éireann was the company the poster meant.

'The NTA Journey Planner is a complete mess'

Comments