Expected service detail fields in OpenLDBWS

[James Tiplady]

Hi all,

I'm just dipping my toe into rail data and attempting to differentiate between the different feeds available. I've signed up for OpenLDBWS and have requested an account on Rail Data Marketplace (in the hope of accessing JSON feeds), but have not heard back from the latter yet.

In what I imagine is a fairly typical initial use-case, I'm interested in homebrewing a departure board display for my local station, initially in a command-line interface, but perhaps later in a physical screen. I believe that OpenLDBWS is the right source for that data, and I have successfully made some requests to the "ldb12" version of OpenLDBWS via Postman and SoapUI using the GetDepBoardWithDetails request type.

There's some data I was expecting to see in the responses that doesn't seem to be present, namely fields describing typical passenger loading, previous calling points and the "last report" status (e.g. "between XYZ and ABC"). These are often present in some public front-ends, e.g. this one (I think this is referred to as the "live departure board" site?).

I wondered if this might be a difference between the Public and Staff versions of the LDB feeds, but fields for the above data (or at least, the first two of the three I list) are described in the OpenLDBWS docs for the Public version, so I was hoping to see them in the responses. Should these fields be present somewhere, or should I be making a different request to see them? Or is it the case that LDBWS doesn't provide some of these and they must be gleaned from other sources, such as Push Port?

Any tips would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance, and do feel free to correct any misnomers or assumptions above, as I'm still getting to grips with all this.

James

[James Tiplady]

Hi all,

Sorry to bump the thread, just wondering if anyone has any insights into the above? The TLDR version is: should typical passenger loading and previous calling points data appear in the public OpenLDBWS GetDepBoardWithDetails feed as the documentation suggests?

Thanks,

   James

[Mike F (Hastings Line)]

Find the serviceID with a call to GetDepartureBoardRequest

Then use the serviceID to call GetServiceDetailsRequest and you should see

        <lt7:formation>
          <lt7:avgLoading>37</lt7:avgLoading>
and

<lt7:previousCallingPoints>
          <lt7:callingPointList>
            <lt7:callingPoint>
              <lt7:locationName>Hastings</lt7:locationName>

hth

Mike

[James Tiplady]

Thanks Mike – GetServiceDetailsRequest is showing previousCallingPoints for me but not any formation field. Is this meant to be available on the public feed or does it require staff access?

J

[Mike F (Hastings Line)]

James, this is the public feed.    I'll send you an example of what I see

Mike

[Zsolt Prontvai]

Hey James.
Did you found the solution for this?
I'm looking both this and the Darwin API and have no luck getting formation data for Thameslink services.

Thanks in advance,
Zsolt

[Arturs Dobrecovs]

Hi Zsolt,

Not all operators publish their formations or crowding levels on Darwin - Thameslink does not publish their formations, but does publish crowding levels (only for some of their routes).

If you'd like to test your implementation to see that you're receiving formation and crowding information correctly, I'd suggest testing with Chiltern Railways or Southeastern who publish both formation and crowding info. Some other operators only publish formations but not crowding (e.g. Greater Anglia), or crowding but not formations (e.g. Great Northern).

Arturs