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David Hamilton
May 29, 2021, 3:28:16 PM5/29/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
Hi All,
I've just signed up to get access to the open data. In all honestly, there is a lot more information available than I was expecting. I've been looking through al the bits of documentation, and figured that I'm not quite understanding what the best service is that I want to use - hence my question...
I have a requirement to see departure information for a single station (Brockenhurst) for use on a small local information service within the village.
I started looking at the Timetable feed, but suspect that I might want to be using Darwin for live data?
I wonder if anyone might be able to offer a few pointers to get me started to help get me started. I'm developing with .NET, but I assume that it is all really API REST calls so should be fairly easy - just trying to get a better understanding.
Thanks
Peter Hicks
May 29, 2021, 3:32:11 PM5/29/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
Hi David
You'll probably want to use the OpenLDBWS - the live departure board web service. It's a query/response interface and doesn't need much in the way of code or domain knowledge to use.
SOAP is not necessarily the modern developer's first choice but if you use .NET, I'm pretty confident you'll find a SOAP library that will take in the Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) file and generate an object and some methods to call from it.
Peter Hicks
Director
OpenTrainTimes Ltd.
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Evelyn Snow
May 29, 2021, 5:45:26 PM5/29/21
to openrail...@googlegroups.com
Hi David!
National Rail's live data fits your use case best. It's optimised for
passenger use, and gets some information that the Network Rail feeds don't.
It's the same data which underpins customer information in stations.
There's three main options for live data. The push port isn't worth
considering, it's a feed with information for every station and service
in Great Britain, and using this has significant burdens. That leaves LDBWS
and LDBSVWS. Both should be sufficient for your needs, the latter has a little
more detail.
As Peter says, these are both unfortunately SOAP services. If you don't want to
deal with that, it might be worth looking at something like Huxley, a proxy you
can run which deals with all that nastiness for you and presents a REST
interface.
https://github.com/jpsingleton/Huxley
Evelyn
2021-05-29T11:59:35-0700 David Hamilton <david.h...@damgoodmedia.com>:
National Rail's live data fits your use case best. It's optimised for
passenger use, and gets some information that the Network Rail feeds don't.
It's the same data which underpins customer information in stations.
There's three main options for live data. The push port isn't worth
considering, it's a feed with information for every station and service
in Great Britain, and using this has significant burdens. That leaves LDBWS
and LDBSVWS. Both should be sufficient for your needs, the latter has a little
more detail.
As Peter says, these are both unfortunately SOAP services. If you don't want to
deal with that, it might be worth looking at something like Huxley, a proxy you
can run which deals with all that nastiness for you and presents a REST
interface.
https://github.com/jpsingleton/Huxley
Evelyn
2021-05-29T11:59:35-0700 David Hamilton <david.h...@damgoodmedia.com>:
Lawrence Schmid
May 30, 2021, 6:49:50 AM5/30/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
Hi,
I am very interested in this thread / topic. I was actually planning to post a similar question but was bit scared to right away. I am quite an experienced programmer with some knowledge of REST and SOAP API's.
Basically I want to use Open Rail Data for an MSc Software Engineering masters degree project. In fact my entire future of doing this degree seems to hang in the balance of whether I can get some decent advice from this group. I have already built a project to map some other data using ASP.NET, Angular 2, OSM and Open Layers but the university is insiting I find an open data source. I tried data.gov.uk but open rail data seems to be the most reliable and complete dataset I can find.
The current plan if I have time is to rebuild my project using the NaPTAN CSV data dumps to map locations of rail and other transportation stations across Great Britain and then use some data scraped from Wikipedia to have information pages about the stations. I can do that reasonably easily myself. The problem is for a masters project the university demand must more and a project which stands out.
I was thinking that ideally I would want something which allowed you to enter a to / from station and gave departure times. Is that even possible with the open data set I can imagine trying to handle train interchanges to get to a desitination must be quite difficult. Another thing I was wondering is it possible to actually map the layout of the train lines using KML or other data and even get live tracking of trains? I did see one example on here with a different dataset which seem to suggest that is avaliable data. It all looks very confusing and advanced data and I could possibly spend the next 5 years just trying to research and work it out.
I did sign up for the Network Rail rail data feeds but haven't had time to look at it. I was a bit confused that on signing up and subscribing to a feed there were not really any instructions unless I missed something and couldn't actually retrieve any data. I also signed up for the TFL API which looked promising but only covers London pressumably.
Any sensible advice would be appreciated.
Lawrence
Evelyn Snow
May 30, 2021, 8:20:59 AM5/30/21
to openrail...@googlegroups.com
Hi
2021-05-30T03:49:50-0700 Lawrence Schmid <lawrenc...@gmail.com>:
stations. Scraping may yield useful information, but I'd suggest it should
be a last resort.
https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php?title=KnowledgeBase
> I was thinking that ideally I would want something which allowed you to
> enter a to / from station and gave departure times. Is that even possible
> with the open data set I can imagine trying to handle train interchanges
> to get to a desitination must be quite difficult.
National Rail offers RTJP, which does allow planning journeys point-to-point,
but it's not open data, and is available only under contract.
I haven't personally tried to plan point-to-point passenger journeys using
open data, but I'd suggest you start by looking at the static passenger
timetable data (see data.atoc.org) for medium-term service information, and the
Darwin push port for near future (within hours) information.
Integrating these datasets is not a trivial undertaking, but will give you
insight into all mainline passenger rail services planned to run in GB in the
near future, and their status at the given moment, which is what you would
need to piece a point-to-point journey plan together yourself.
In principle the SOAP services would have a lower burden than the Darwin push
port, but unfortunately they don't allow you to query a service which is not
presently running, where you would be offered that information with the push
port.
> Another thing I was
> wondering is it possible to actually map the layout of the train lines
> using KML or other data and even get live tracking of trains? I did see
> one example on here with a different dataset which seem to suggest that is
> avaliable data. It all looks very confusing and advanced data and I could
> possibly spend the next 5 years just trying to research and work it out.
As above, you can draw these inferences from existing datasets, but there is
no provided logical map of passenger services which I'm aware of.
> I did sign up for the Network Rail rail data feeds but haven't had time to
> look at it. I was a bit confused that on signing up and subscribing to a
> feed there were not really any instructions unless I missed something and
> couldn't actually retrieve any data. I also signed up for the TFL API
> which looked promising but only covers London pressumably.
> Any sensible advice would be appreciated.
> Lawrence
Network Rail data feeds are probably not the best suited to a passenger
information project in any event, but documentation on those as well as the
National Rail feeds can be found on the open rail data wiki.
You are also completely correct in that TfL feeds only cover London (and only
TfL-run services in London at that). Similarly, National/Network Rail data
provides extremely limited coverage of non-mainline rail.
https://wiki.openraildata.com/
Evelyn
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openraildata-talk/2ddd0cc0-4834-42d8-a7cf-16fdebf941bdn%40googlegroups.com.
2021-05-30T03:49:50-0700 Lawrence Schmid <lawrenc...@gmail.com>:
> The current plan if I have time is to rebuild my project using the NaPTAN
> CSV data dumps to map locations of rail and other transportation stations
> across Great Britain and then use some data scraped from Wikipedia to have
> information pages about the stations. I can do that reasonably easily
> myself. The problem is for a masters project the university demand must
> more and a project which stands out.
I'd suggest looking at National Rail's knowledgebase for information on
> CSV data dumps to map locations of rail and other transportation stations
> across Great Britain and then use some data scraped from Wikipedia to have
> information pages about the stations. I can do that reasonably easily
> myself. The problem is for a masters project the university demand must
> more and a project which stands out.
stations. Scraping may yield useful information, but I'd suggest it should
be a last resort.
https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php?title=KnowledgeBase
> I was thinking that ideally I would want something which allowed you to
> enter a to / from station and gave departure times. Is that even possible
> with the open data set I can imagine trying to handle train interchanges
> to get to a desitination must be quite difficult.
but it's not open data, and is available only under contract.
I haven't personally tried to plan point-to-point passenger journeys using
open data, but I'd suggest you start by looking at the static passenger
timetable data (see data.atoc.org) for medium-term service information, and the
Darwin push port for near future (within hours) information.
Integrating these datasets is not a trivial undertaking, but will give you
insight into all mainline passenger rail services planned to run in GB in the
near future, and their status at the given moment, which is what you would
need to piece a point-to-point journey plan together yourself.
In principle the SOAP services would have a lower burden than the Darwin push
port, but unfortunately they don't allow you to query a service which is not
presently running, where you would be offered that information with the push
port.
> Another thing I was
> wondering is it possible to actually map the layout of the train lines
> using KML or other data and even get live tracking of trains? I did see
> one example on here with a different dataset which seem to suggest that is
> avaliable data. It all looks very confusing and advanced data and I could
> possibly spend the next 5 years just trying to research and work it out.
no provided logical map of passenger services which I'm aware of.
> I did sign up for the Network Rail rail data feeds but haven't had time to
> look at it. I was a bit confused that on signing up and subscribing to a
> feed there were not really any instructions unless I missed something and
> couldn't actually retrieve any data. I also signed up for the TFL API
> which looked promising but only covers London pressumably.
> Any sensible advice would be appreciated.
> Lawrence
information project in any event, but documentation on those as well as the
National Rail feeds can be found on the open rail data wiki.
You are also completely correct in that TfL feeds only cover London (and only
TfL-run services in London at that). Similarly, National/Network Rail data
provides extremely limited coverage of non-mainline rail.
https://wiki.openraildata.com/
Evelyn
Lawrence Schmid
May 30, 2021, 9:28:59 AM5/30/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
Thanks Evelyn. I will have a look at your advice.
Lawrence Schmid
May 30, 2021, 5:34:55 PM5/30/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
Is this the only information I can get from here?
Lawrence Schmid
May 30, 2021, 5:44:42 PM5/30/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
I was looking at this dataset post in paticular https://railmap.azurewebsites.net/Public/Route
Lawrence Schmid
May 30, 2021, 6:09:21 PM5/30/21
to A gathering place for the Open Rail Data community
I can't find the website right now but I thought one of them had live tracking of trains?
Evelyn Snow
May 30, 2021, 9:32:56 PM5/30/21
to openrail...@googlegroups.com
h
You can determine the approximate physical location of a particular train by
tracking its progression with either the darwin push port, or TRUST, and
then corresponding the timing location with the last arrival report to physical
location information, such as it exists. Timing locations cover locations
other than stations along the route of a train, such as junctions, which does
allow a slightly higher level of precision than just station to station
location.
There's a CSV file around with the eastings
and northings of various rail locations, and the naptan set contains
latitudes and longitudes of all *stations* only.
The feeds and datasets I mention aren't the only ones, they're the ones which
I think may be relevant to what you're describing. It's quite likely I don't
properly understand what you want! If you want a general overview of the feeds,
I'd suggest the wiki might be a more patient and exhaustive guide than myself.
Evelyn
2021-05-30T15:09:21-0700 Lawrence Schmid <lawrenc...@gmail.com>:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openraildata-talk/085ba756-0090-41b6-ae3d-e822f52ec500n%40googlegroups.com.
You can determine the approximate physical location of a particular train by
tracking its progression with either the darwin push port, or TRUST, and
then corresponding the timing location with the last arrival report to physical
location information, such as it exists. Timing locations cover locations
other than stations along the route of a train, such as junctions, which does
allow a slightly higher level of precision than just station to station
location.
There's a CSV file around with the eastings
and northings of various rail locations, and the naptan set contains
latitudes and longitudes of all *stations* only.
The feeds and datasets I mention aren't the only ones, they're the ones which
I think may be relevant to what you're describing. It's quite likely I don't
properly understand what you want! If you want a general overview of the feeds,
I'd suggest the wiki might be a more patient and exhaustive guide than myself.
Evelyn
2021-05-30T15:09:21-0700 Lawrence Schmid <lawrenc...@gmail.com>:
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