I spotted the new journey check service on Wagn's website today, and
you can find out more about it at;
http://www.nexusalpha.co.uk/journeycheck/

The downside is that it doesn't currently work via the WAP or PDA
service but that's presumably a temporary problem, or Wagn jumped the
gun on announcing it! However, as long as it does work soon (and all
the time), it's exactly what I've been waiting for.

I currently use a mix of Orange World/National Rail, TFL (for tube
delays and explanations) and the Nexus Alpha's wagnlive service (for
Wagn delay explanations) and it's messy to say the least!

Maybe we're getting a step closer to a decent integrated transport
system. Not that I'm expecting Arriva to start giving realtime bus
information at my railway station anytime soon - as they can't even
time buses to call AFTER trains arrive yet!

Jonathan

To add, it DOES work but the URL on the site is wrong;

wap.jcheck.com/wagn
pda.jcheck.com/wagn (not Wagn as shown)

Jonathan

On 27 Aug 2005 06:34:27 -0700, "jonmorris" 
wrote:


>Maybe we're getting a step closer to a decent integrated transport
>system. Not that I'm expecting Arriva to start giving realtime bus
>information at my railway station anytime soon - as they can't even
>time buses to call AFTER trains arrive yet!


The bus issue won't get sorted out until the current culture of
carelessness is replaced with a culture of professionalism in the bus
industry.  That may be a while, if it ever comes.

(Example: the driver of my bus back from the station missed half of
his route out, just doing the bits he had to do to drop me and the
other passenger off.  It didn't seem to occur to him that there was
anything remotely wrong with this[1] - never mind that it would
certainly be a sacking offence at any bus company I was a manager of).

[1] OK, it got me home earlier, but given that the timetable does not
state that it's a "drop off only" service it's not really on.

Neil

-- 
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

I've been on a few buses run by UNO (formerly University Bus) in
Hatfield that have done that. They think they're doing you a favour,
but on other occasions I've been the mug that 'missed' the bus because
it couldn't be bothered to wait.

I did complain about it to one driver, so he then deliberately drove
extra slow to supposedly keep to the timetable. I guess he was trying
to make the point 'would you prefer this?'. It was the last time I used
that bus company, and now I wouldn't unless I absolutely had to.

To be fair to Arriva, they came in and took over the existing bus
company so haven't necessarily had time to change the timetables, which
are in part organised by the local authority. The test will be to see
if they make any changes in the future to improve rail connections, and
perhaps the services run in the evenings - so people aren't forced to
walk or take a cab after about 10pm (seeing as the trains arrive until
2am 6 days a week).

We've certainly got a long way to go.

Jonathan

"Neil Williams"  wrote in message 
news:4310f0b9.3538488@news.tesco.net...

> On 27 Aug 2005 06:34:27 -0700, "jonmorris" 
> wrote:
>
>>Maybe we're getting a step closer to a decent integrated transport
>>system. Not that I'm expecting Arriva to start giving realtime bus
>>information at my railway station anytime soon - as they can't even
>>time buses to call AFTER trains arrive yet!
>
> The bus issue won't get sorted out until the current culture of
> carelessness is replaced with a culture of professionalism in the bus
> industry.  That may be a while, if it ever comes.
>
> (Example: the driver of my bus back from the station missed half of
> his route out, just doing the bits he had to do to drop me and the
> other passenger off.  It didn't seem to occur to him that there was
> anything remotely wrong with this[1] - never mind that it would
> certainly be a sacking offence at any bus company I was a manager of).


An all-too frequent occurrence on Arriva North East's 26/27/28 services, 
driven by consistently-useless drivers based at Richmond. Endless complaints 
have done nothing about this. Same goes for Stagecoach Darlington's 25 
services, where they miss one well-used stop in particular if they're late - 
which they usually are.

-- 
*** http://www.railwayscene.co.uk/ ***
Rich Mackin (rich-at-richmackin-co-uk)
MSN: richmackin-at-hotmail-dot-com

> To add, it DOES work but the URL on the site is wrong;
> wap.jcheck.com/wagn
> pda.jcheck.com/wagn (not Wagn as shown)


....and it's STILL wrong on their site!

With the overhead line problems at Letchworth on Tuesday (30 Aug), it
was a good chance to see if it actually worked. Not sure it did too
well.

For a start, the departures info wasn't updated to reflect the change
in services (almost an emergency timetable). And you don't get platform
numbers as you would via the Wagn site itself, which is irritating.

It also removed trains from the departure list after their departure
time, so if the train was delayed you won't know and assume it's gone!
The 1806 to Foxton (well, Hitchin) was actually cancelled in the end,
due to no driver, but this info never went up or that it was scheduled
to stop additionally at Potters Bar and Hatfield.

I know the info is only as good as that fed into it, but it does mean
that this service (I wonder how well it works on SWT?) has a way to go.
Still, if Wagn can't fix the URL on their website then pretty much
nobody will be using it anyway!

Jonathan