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

  • Moscow Ring Railway upgraded to GSM-R
    September 23, 2016
    Austrian companies Rotek and Frequentis have completed the deployment of Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway (GSM-R) standard dispatch communication equipment for the Moscow Ring Railway (MRR) on behalf of JSC Russian Railways. Based on Frequentis IP voice communication technology, Rotek upgraded the current system and connected it to the infrastructure and terminals of the MRR. GSM-R functionality supports further planned rail extensions including additional Russian Railway lines as we
  • Paris launches ambitious new cycling plan
    May 5, 2015
    Paris has launched its 2015-2020 cycling strategy, which aims to double the length of the city's cycle network and triple the number of Parisians cycling every day. The strategy was developed with the input of almost 7,000 stakeholders in a consultation period from December 2014 to January 2015 aims to help deal with Paris's high air pollution and concentration of particulates, which caused heavy smog earlier this year and in spring 2015. A total of US$166 million has been allocated to realise the str
  • Veronica O. Davis: "There really has to be a better way"
    November 7, 2023
    Is it possible to change a system whose attitudes seem entrenched? Veronica O. Davis, author of this year’s must-read transport book Inclusive Transportation, talks to Adam Hill
  • Auckland reduces airport journey times
    April 16, 2018
    Getting from the centre of Auckland to the city’s airport used to be fraught with unwanted stress for passengers – but a new system combining radar, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is smoothing things over. Andrew Stone investigates. Struggling to cope with steady growth in passenger numbers and the costly traffic congestion which that can entail, New Zealand’s Auckland International Airport has deployed an innovative system that is smoothing traffic and passenger flows. The same system is also offering new, data-led