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The Transport Direct Portal was a distributed Internet-based multi-modal
journey planner A journey planner, trip planner, or route planner is a specialized search engine used to find an optimal means of travelling between two or more given locations, sometimes using more than one transport mode. Searches may be optimized on differen ...
providing information for travel in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. It was managed by
Transport Direct The Transport Direct Programme was a division of the UK Department for Transport (DfT) to develop standards, data and better information technology systems to support public transport. It developed and operates the Transport Direct Portal wh ...
, a division of 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 ...
. It was launched in 2004 and was operated by a consortium led by
Atos Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and ...
and later enhanced to include a cycle journey planning function. The closure of the portal was announced in September 2014 and the portal closed on 30 September 2014.


Operation

The portal offered a door-to-door journey planner which allowed the user to compare different transport modes including car, rail, bus and coach, air, walking and cycling. Specific features included: * Routing using one or more modes: local bus, coaches, rail and walking. * Cycle journey planning for 32 towns and counties. * Car routing that takes into account likely traffic congestion based on past experience and can route to a suitable car park or park and ride site. * Internal flight routing in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, with links to the operator to price your journey. * Rail-only all-day journey plans with the ability to search for the train journeys with the cheaper fares. * Compare journeys opportunities between selected major British cities and transport interchanges by different modes. * Live travel and traffic news – travel and traffic incidents – both planned and unplanned – as well as real-time train running information. * Real-time train running information that can be accessed from a
Mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
and an
Interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new information ...
. * A
white label A white label record is a vinyl record with white labels attached. There are several variations each with a different purpose. Variations include test pressings, white label promos, and plain white labels. Test pressings Test pressings, usua ...
version which was available through (
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...
and
Visit Britain VisitBritain is the name used by the British Tourist Authority, the tourist board of Great Britain incorporated under the Development of Tourism Act 1969. Under memoranda of understanding with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and the offshore is ...
). * An exposed Web service (
Service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...
) was used by a number of partners including UK
Department for Work and Pensions , type = Department , seal = , logo = Department for Work and Pensions logo.svg , logo_width = 166px , formed = , preceding1 = , jurisdiction = Government of the United Kingdom , headquarters = Caxton House7th Floor6–12 Tothill Stree ...
. * Links back to the service are provided from
Google Transit Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
and
National Rail Enquiries National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the pa ...
. * Estimation of CO2 emissions for your journey, whether by car or public transport. * A batch journey planner to support the creation of
Travel Plan A travel plan is a package of actions designed by a workplace, school or other organisation to encourage safe, healthy and sustainable travel options. By reducing car travel, travel plans can improve health and wellbeing, free up car parking space, ...
s. * A mobile friendly version of the door to door planner was added in August 2013. The planner used a distributed approach based on the Traveline journey planners for each Traveline region with the JourneyWeb protocol being used to manage journeys between Traveline regions. Each Journey Planner integrated information from many different transport operators and sources.


Cost and usage

The 10 millionth user session took place on 1 December 2006 with the number of session steadily growing over time; 1.126 million user sessions were recorded for August 2007. By March 2010, a total of 70 million user sessions have been provided, with the total uses by the start of 2011 being 81 million thus being used over 11 million times in a year. Operation of the Portal cost £5.9 million for the period April 2006 to March 2007. The total cost of the Transport Direct Programme was £55 million to March 2007.


History

Transport Direct The Transport Direct Programme was a division of the UK Department for Transport (DfT) to develop standards, data and better information technology systems to support public transport. It developed and operates the Transport Direct Portal wh ...
established the Traveline organisation in 2000 to develop a number of regional call centres, initially using paper timetables, and to provide a national public transport information service. It was divided into 11 different areas (regions) each of which develop computerised journey planners. Transport Direct wanted to be able to provide a single point of access to this service and a contract to develop the Transport Direct Portal was awarded in 2002 to
Atos Origin Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and ...
which would provide an integrated point of access to the regional journey planners using the JourneyWeb protocol which was developed for the purpose. Following a two-year period of development and testing and was officially launched by
Alistair Darling Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, (born 28 November 1953) is a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he was a Member ...
, the
Secretary of State for Transport The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...
on 31 December 2004. At the time it was claimed to be the first national door-to-door travel to provide details of both
Public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
and car for journeys. By way of historical comparison,
Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
was not launched until early the following year. Google Transit was released in
Google Labs Google Labs was an incubator created by Google to test and publicly demonstrate new projects. It was online from early 2002 to mid-2011. Google described Google Labs as "a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototyp ...
in December 2005 and was not integrated into Google Maps until October 2007. A number of issues with the underlying data that were picked up by the national media resulting in poor results. During 2005, new service delivery channels (
Mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
,
Personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
and
Interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new information ...
) were introduced. Functionality to find cheaper rail fares and a day trip planner were added as well as information about the location of car parks and other points of interest. The product was further enhanced in 2006 to accommodate the wider range of services and provide easier access from the home page to the core door-to-door and live travel news services. In March 2009, Transport Direct added cycle journey planning to the Portal for Manchester and Merseyside. The cycle data collected for Transport Direct was subsequently converted into an
OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...
-compatible format. This was released on GitHub by
CycleStreets CycleStreets is a not-for-profit United Kingdom organisation that provides a free-to-use national cycle journey planner for the United Kingdom. The planner uses OpenStreetMap data for routing, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission for height data an ...
in January 2018. Usage of the Transport Direct Portal grew significantly since its launch and 2008 was operating at an annual rate of about 18.5 million user sessions. By 2014 it had served more than 160 million travel information requests. The Department for Transport reviewed Transport Direct in 2014 and decided to close the portal as there are plenty of equivalent services provided by the private sector.


References

{{reflist


External links


Transport Direct web site

Atos Transport Division

DfT Site on Transport Direct

Cycling England on the Journey Planner
British travel websites E-government in the United Kingdom Non-profit organisations based in the United Kingdom Public transport information systems Route planning websites Transport in the United Kingdom Web Map Services