In October 2008 Traveline entered into an agreement with Kizoom for the provision of a national bus departures service on the mobile internet. The new service will offer the public:
The service will be Traveline branded, and will use multiple data sources to provide the best possible combination of timetabled and real-time information. It will be implemented using an extension of technologies already developed by Kizoom for on-portal rail information and Traveline SMS bus information services.
Location awareness, postcode lookups and personalisation features will be used to achieve an effective user experience given the challenges of handling bus information at a national level on mobile devices.
The mobile internet (or mobile web) is now established as a convenient, fast growing and cost effective way for travellers to access transport information, as demonstrated by more than 1 million rail enquiries per month through Kizoom services.
Mainstream phones now include the features needed to support a compelling bus departures service: internet access as a standard feature, data costs increasingly affordable and simple to understand, location awareness, and screen resolution good enough to display useful maps.
The term 'WAP' is often used loosely as an equivalent to 'mobile internet', but in fact refers to a particular technology. The new Traveline service will work with WAP, but not only WAP. The type of device being used will be detected, and pages will be delivered using the most appropriate technology, which will be HTML for many PDAs and newer phones.
To be well used, a transport service should be listed on the content portals of the major mobile operators, i.e.:
Portal listing brings many benefits (high traffic, easy access to personalisation & location), but also brings constraints and costs, since each operator will require its own bespoke service with its design guidelines and integration processes.
Prior to commencing this project Kizoom carried out a consultation exercise on behalf of Traveline, discussing the new service with the five mobile operators listed above. This revealed a high degree of enthusiasm and general willingness to move towards portal listing.
The project is therefore structured around five separate implementations, which will be launched sequentially. Orange and Vodafone are likely to be the first to be completed, with a target date of January 2009 for the first portal.
Additionally, the project includes an off-portal version of the service, which will not be affiliated to any mobile operator and which will be available to all users, including non-UK phone users and holders of contracts with Virgin, Tesco, etc.
Data sources
Timetabled information will be available nationwide from Traveline regional journey planning servers.
Real-time information will be available where schemes have been implemented by local authorities and integrated with Kizoom systems, i.e. the same data sources and connections that support the existing Traveline SMS service on 84268.
Service features
The Traveline branded home page will provide the entry point to the service, allowing the user to:
The results page will consist of a paginated list of stops with a map pane to help the user identify the desired stop. On most phones it will be possible to select stops from the map using number keys.
Cell location information provided by mobile networks will be used to ensure search results are local (unless a different locality is specified) and maximally relevant.
The departure board page will present in expanded form the same core information as supplied via the SMS service on 84268. This will be regionally configurable, can be filtered by route number, and will include a link to show a map pane centred on the individual stop, to help the user physically locate it.
© traveline 2008, Last updated: 1 December 2008