Bustimes.org is a transportation information website created to take advantage of

Bus Services Act 2017 The Bus Services Act 2017 (c. 21) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for local transport authorities to create partnership schemes to improve bus services in their areas, and to introduce advanced ticketing schemes. T ...

requirements for bus operators by the

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...

that bus timetables, fares and vehicle locations could be provided in an

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

format, which can be utilised by app and website developers. This DfT service is called the

Bus Open Data Service The Bus Open Data Service (BODS) is a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 as part of the Bus Services Act 2017. It was created in a partnership between ITO World, the Department for Transport and KPMG. The service is des ...

. Location data from operators such as

Lothian Buses Lothian Buses is a major bus operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council (through Transport for Edinburgh) owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian ...

is supplied to the site via the Transport for Edinburgh Open Data system. The site uses data from AVL tracking to determine and transmit the

geographic location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...

of a

vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...

, such as data from

Ticketer Ticketer is the brand name for a range of electronic ticket machines provided by British company Corvia Ltd, primarily for usage on buses. The "innovative" cloud-based system, first marketed on a small scale in 2008, has since developed int ...

machines and the

iBus When drinking beer, there are many factors to be considered. Principal among them are bitterness, the variety of flavours present in the beverage and their intensity, alcohol content, and colour. Standards for those characteristics allow a more o ...

system in order to display live bus positions on a map. The site also uses data from the

National Public Transport Gazetteer The National Public Transport Gazetteer (NPTG) provides a topographic database of towns and settlements in the UK; it provides a common frame of reference for the National Public Transport Access Nodes (NaPTAN) schema and other UK Public Trans ...

, and bus stop locations from

NaPTAN The National Public Transport Access Node (NaPTAN) database is a UK nationwide system for uniquely identifying all the points of access to public transport in the UK. The dataset is closely associated with the National Public Transport Gazettee ...

. The live tracking system was added in response to the Department for Transport stating that they wanted "to see more people taking the bus, and...those who do take it to have the best possible experience." with fares for companies operating the Passenger MyTrip system being added in 2022.

Criticism

The website was criticised by

Centrebus Group Centrebus Group, is a public transport company based in Leicester with bus services in the Midlands, North West and South East of England. Owned by Julian Peddle, the group contains Chaserider, Centrebus, High Peak Buses and D&G Bus. History C ...

owner,

Julian Peddle Julian Peddle (born November 1954)Julian Henry Peddle
Company Check is an entrepreneur ...

, as lacking authority, not being an "official website" and questioning if trust can be placed in its information{{Cite news , last=Peddle , first=Julian , date=July 2022 , title=It's all online, isn't it? , pages=17 , work=

Buses Magazine ''Buses'' is a United Kingdom magazine focusing mainly on the British public bus industry. It was originally published by Ian Allan Publishing; since March 2012 it has been published by Key Publishing. History and profile ''Buses'' was published ...

, publisher=

Key Publishing Key Publishing is a magazine publishing company specialising in aviation titles, based in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. History '' Airliner World'' was launched in 1999. In 2005 it launched ''Airports of the World'', and in the same year i ...

, url=https://www.keybuses.com/article/its-all-online-isnt-it , access-date=2022-06-28 in an article in

about bus timetable information.

References

External links

Bustimes.org
Bus transport in England Travel technology Open data Public transport in the United Kingdom