Improving Things Worse

I'm not giving my usual run down on last weeks service registrations as I am working my way through the hundreds of timetables that I know about that have yet to hit my usual download. A big part of this process involves download the timetables from Traveline, which up until recently has been very reliable.

There is a phrase I have been hearing a lot recently in IT – “Improving things worse” Generally the art of announcing “improvements” to web services which end up taking things away that previously worked. More often than not these days its around giving us AI tools that you have not asked for and then increasing the cost to pay for these AI tools you wont use.

Traveline has “improved” its service, although thankfully AI is not involved so far at least.

It looks very different when you access the site:

From here you can plan your trip by entering start and end points which does work fairly well, but all I want is the full timetable for a service that I know is due to change in August. Its not immediately obvious from this page but as a regular user of these sites I know to use the ‘hamburger’ icon top left for more options

This then does give me more options including route timetable.

It is quick but straight away you see the main problem. This gives you all the services with this number. Previously you could restrict it to operators, or even just the individual counties across the south west. Dont try looking for service 1 as there are loads! you could try adding “stagecoach” but that didnt work. or even “13 stagecoach south west” that didnt work. So for now all you can do is scroll through the large list and then select the route option you need.

From there you can select the pdf button and get the old timetable pdf that you could before. OK so far its slightly less convenient but it does give me the timetable.

In the old days you could also see the service map, either as a download ‘diagram’ map which isnt the best, or display the map on the page. You can see the map to the right taking up half the screen. Ideal…

It even appears that you can select the options top right, sadly they do nothing!

I am hoping this is a work in progress as why have half the screen showing a map that at the moment doesn't add anything.

I still find Traveline really useful, and many operators just point you to the site as they cant be bothered to do their own timetables. I am hoping some of the old functionality will come back, like restricting searches to operator/ county etc which worked so well before. The route map actually displayed on the map page would also be great.

Upgrade?

The internet is great, or at least it can be. Being able to get all the information you need at the click of a mouse is brilliant, or at least it is when it works. One thing that really annoys is when a web site which worked well gets ‘upgraded’ and you almost always loose something in the process. The unseemly rush to make web sites look good on mobile phones at the cost of decent usability and features is particularly annoying. Viewing timetables on the current Plymouth Citybus web site is a case in point. It worked perfectly well before but now is less than useful on a PC.

The latest site to get an upgrade is Traveline South West which I use a lot as its often the only place to get timetables you can actually print off. In fact its quite often the only place you can get timetables at all as so many smaller operators and local authorities don't bother with their own timetables. Anyway, back to Traveline. What do we get now?

The now customary large photo graphic in the background is the first thing you notice with a large search box in the middle of the screen. I have never liked the journey planners so go straight to the Route Timetables as that's what I want at the moment.

A nice big map and a few search boxes down the left side. Seems promising so far…

So I know that Plymouth Citybus are bringing in a new timetable for their 112 in April, so hopefully the new timetable is already on Traveline. Lets see…

So I will try entering 112 and Plymouth. I use the options bar to restrict my search to Devon and Cornwall as I always do on Traveline.

and my first major gripe - the awful results box in the bottom left hand corner. You can only see a couple of lines and you need to scroll up and down and left and right within this small area to read the results. Its very difficult to use, especially if there are more than a few results to look at. There are two lines for the 112, hopefully one is the current timetable and the other is the new one for April, so I will click one of the entries and scroll right to see if it shows that date range.

Oh dear, half the line disappears but you do see the dates on the line below so clearly the top line must be the new timetable I am after. So click the [Display Download and Print] box and you get the old, unimproved route page details

Although as you can see the dates indicate that this is the current timetable. In fact both lines are linking to the current timetable at the moment. This might just be teething issues (yesterday none of the timetables were working at all).

At the moment though we do have Traveline South East with their ancient but usable design

The page might look horrible but its so easy to see which timetable you need, which is the whole point of the web page.

OK so what about maps? The large map on the right hand of the screen suggests this could be quite good. so we use the same search boxes to get the 112 and this time click the [HTML] box (this could be better named really as HTML is a programming language, if you are not computer literate it does not mean anything)

Oh No, this is horrible!

The massive markers for bus stops are just overkill as at this zoom level its impossible to see where the bus goes. The large advert on the right cant be moved nor can you hide the search box on the left. I have yet to work out how I am going to get maps suitable for my web site without a lot of work. There used to be a button on each map so you open the full screen map in a new window - if they could bring this back it would help, oh, and reduce those awful big map markers.

If you zoom in to get a better view of the route, say the top section it gets even worse..

Do we really need all those green bus stop icons for all routes? Maybe useful if there were a lot smaller?

Hopefully some of these issues will be sorted over a short period of time. We had this recently with the new VOSA site, which has finally settled down to ne useful again. It wouldn't take much to sort out. A simple button to open a map in a new window as they had before, much smaller bus stop icons, and a better way of displaying the search results would make a big difference…

I really like Traveline and find it a very useful site. I just hope that it can make a few changes to become more useable again.

Sadly the maps on Traveline SE are the old design but they never had the link to view a full size version in a new window so are no good to me at all without a lot of copying and pasting in Photoshop.

I have only started to scratch at the surface so far - has anyone else tried using it? Anyone else have any comments?

http://www.travelinesw.com/

Smartly presented but hard to find

A while back we reported the following VOSA Notice:

7 March 2014

PH1081198/11 - TREVELLYAN JACKETT T/A JACKETT'S COACHES, KINGSETT HOUSE,, ALBASTON, GUNNISLAKE, PL18 9AL Registration

• Starting Point: Plymouth, Royal Parade
• Finish Point: Plymouth, Royal Parade
• Via: Barbican & West Hoe
• Service Number: 25
• Service Type: Normal stopping
• Effective Date: 4 May 2014
• Other Details: Sundays and public holiday from first Sunday in May through to last Sunday in September each year.

I had been waiting for a while to get the timetable added to my Plymothian Bus Services site but it wasn't appearing on Traveline. Today I downloaded a copy from Jacketts Coaches own web site which at least was easy to find and nice and clear. 

4 May 2014

New Route taken over Sunday Service from Plymouth Citybus under tender to Plymouth City Council, Royal Parade, Exeter Street Viaduct, Charles Cross, Exeter Street Viaduct, Kinterbury Street, Bretonside, Vauxhall Street, Southside Street, The Barbican. Lambhay Hill, Hoe Road, Grand Parade, Great Western Road, West Hoe Road, Walker Terrace, Prospect Place, Citadel Road, Lockyer Street, Notte Street, Princess Way, Derry’s Cross, Royal Parade

TIMETABLE PDF

Now for me this was nice and easy as I knew that Jacketts were taking over the Sunday service. How easy for anyone else looking for a Sunday bus to The Barbican? Plymouth Citybus understandably have their own timetable for service 25 which is down as a Monday to Saturday service. Would it be too much to ask for at least a note on their to say that the Sunday service was operated by someone else?

Never mind, I happen to know that Traveline have all the timetables for all operators so I can do a quick search on there. Sadly no sign of the Jacketts 25 at all. I did check the Plymouth Citybus 25 just to see if there was a note but no - the 25 is still down as Monday - Saturday only.

Now I am fairly well informed on local buses so I know that the service is operated under tender to Plymouth City Council. As they are paying for the service its bound to be publicised there isn't it?

Well the City Councils web site is at best described as bland but functional. They really could do with a full site makeover but at least there are links to current timetables for all operators. Sure enough there is a link to service 25 along with a link to a map. Oh dear - it just goes to Traveline who clearly show it as a Monday to Saturday service operated by Plymouth Citybus! There is a link to a page about subsidised services paid for by the council but that is out of date too with no mention of Jacketts Sunday Service. In fact Jacketts is not even mentioned in the list of operators at the bottom of the page either!

The service started yesterday and Jacketts were showing their best side with this smartly presented bus with a decent destination display

©Bobby Darch

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