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

  • Nokia builds comms network for the smart, super-connected highway
    March 6, 2025
    The challenges are clear, but operators are embracing digitalisation and automation as they work to transform the highway landscape
  • New Yunex CEO targets profitable growth
    April 18, 2024
    New Yunex Traffic CEO Jon Newhard suggests that the German company has three main attributes. The first is product suite, with platforms such as Yutraffic Symphony allowing intersection and traffic flow management. The second is customers and the third is domain expertise.
  • Papercast displays piloted in Tannheim to improve bus services
    February 6, 2018
    Papercast has deployed its e-paper passenger information bus stop displays in Tannheim, Austria, as part of a strategy to improve public transport service quality, by rolling out real-time service data to its passengers. The displays are designed with the intention of operating around the clock using solar power and providing 3G mobile network connectivity. The solution is currently installed at Tannheim’s municipal office to measure passenger reaction and to define future requirements. These displays
  • EU ‘still a long way off autonomous vehicle legislation’
    September 8, 2015
    European Commission and Parliament officials said during a panel discussion in Brussels that they were moving towards regulating connected cars, but are still a long way off from sealing new legislation on autonomous vehicles. Major car companies have been running tests on autonomous or driverless cars over the last couple of years and some European companies have launched test drives with autonomous cars on public streets. Germany's Daimler got the go ahead this month from state authorities to drive the