Skip to main content

UK railways to benefit from information upgrade

More than US$13.44 million funding will be spent by train companies to boost passenger information at stations across the UK. The funding will pay for a national roll-out to link customer information screens at stations to the latest live real time train information data, fed from a database developed and maintained by train companies. The upgrade will be rolled out in around 2,000 National Rail stations. The first stations will be switched on in summer 2014 and the whole project is anticipated to be comp
January 3, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
More than US$13.44 million funding will be spent by train companies to boost passenger information at stations across the UK.

The funding will pay for a national roll-out to link customer information screens at stations to the latest live real time train information data, fed from a database developed and maintained by train companies.  The upgrade will be rolled out in around 2,000 National Rail stations.  The first stations will be switched on in summer 2014 and the whole project is anticipated to be complete in 2015.

The scheme follows successful trials at seventeen stations managed by Virgin Trains along the West Coast Main Line and across all the stations operated by Chiltern Railways. The funding is provided through the National Stations Improvement Programme (NSIP) and the data will feed through from National Rail Enquiries (NRE).

Alec McTavish, NSIP lead for the Association of Train Operating Companies (1998 ATOC) said: “This funding is good news for passengers as it means every National Rail station with a customer information screen will be using the most up-to date ‘live’ train running information.

“With train travel more popular now than it has been for 90 years and over 1.4 billion trips made last year, operators know that passengers want the most up to-date information about their journey.

“Significant amounts of time and money have been invested in providing better, more consistent information for passengers. But we know that we can always improve, which is why operators are working with the rest of the industry and listening to passengers to find ways to keep on improving things even further.”

Train companies are working hard to continuously improve the information they give to passengers. Earlier this year NRE launched its own free smartphone app for iPhone and Android operating systems, offering UK passengers even more choice over how they access real time information about train journeys.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Hayden AI & Snapper Services keep their eyes on the road
    August 29, 2024
    Snapper Services CEO Miki Szikszai and Chris Carson, CEO of Hayden AI, tell Adam Hill about synergy and partnership – and how to make use of data once you’ve gathered it
  • HGV blind spot technology tested to improve road safety
    April 24, 2014
    A new project funded by the UK’s Transport for London (TfL) will independently test blind spot safety technology, which can be fitted to Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) to help reduce the risk of collisions between HGVs, pedestrians and cyclists. One of TfL's top priorities is to reduce by 40 per cent the number of people killed or seriously injured on London's roads by 2020. Recently, the Mayor and TfL published six commitments which, working with a range of partners, are guiding initiatives to deliver thi
  • TfL commences consultation on cashless trams
    September 5, 2017
    Transport for London (TfL) has begun an eight-week public consultation on plans to make trams in London ‘cashless’. The proposal would see existing cash ticket machines, which only sell a small number of the more expensive paper tickets every week and do not allow customers to top-up their Oyster card, removed from the tram network. As the ticket machines, which were installed when the tram system opened in 2000, have such low usage and have now reached the end of their useful life
  • Wellington trials smart parking
    April 14, 2015
    Commuters in Wellington, New Zealand, will be able to pay and simply walk away from their cars as part of the new ‘pay by space’ parking trial in the city. Customers enter their parking space number at the pay machine and then can head off to work or go shopping, without the need to go back to their car to place a ticket on their dashboard. The first stage of the trial involved embedding sensors in parking spaces in Blair and Allen streets. The sensors have provided information on usage, turnover and oc