Digital Travel Data Services

The proposed new next generation data system and associated web, App and API services will continue to deliver vital national travel data information service and will aim to enhance current provision, supplementing with further travel data information to support people to feel more informed with regards to their travel plans and more confident in their public transport journey. It will include more information regarding accessibility, active travel and alternative travel modes, such as Demand Responsive Transport, as well as carbon footprint information, which support achieving Scottish Government climate objectives.

This approach aims to build on a number of opportunities that have been identified to enhance the experience of the travelling public regarding the following:-

• Making it easy to plan my journey - Allow customers to plan all legs of their journey, including the return journey (and first / last mile where possible), in a simple and fast manner.
• Making it easy to understand my journey - Empower customers and ensure they feel informed about the entire journey, not just about the beginning and the end.
• Making it easy to tailor my journey - Support the travelling public to ensure they have a certain degree of personalisation when planning a trip e.g. each journey should fit around their needs.
• Trusting journey information - Data accuracy is paramount to continue building trust and should be improved where possible to enhance the experience of the traveling public.
• Making it easy to be kept informed - Provide real-time travel and disruption updates not just before, but during a journey, to ensure passengers continue to travel with minimal fuss.
• Feeling supported - Provide the traveling public with the right level of support to meet their traveling needs.

In order to address the above, the primary objectives of this project will therefore be to:-

• Deliver a transport data management services platform that will enable transport data to be collected, cleansed, checked, aggregated, reported and be made available as open data in static and live formats, in an automated fashion where possible, to a wide range of journey planning, incident / disruption, fare and live data services.
• Ensure the centrally managed data management platform is updated (where required) by data owners. This will include: Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships, operators of traditional and non-traditional modes of transport and other associated transport agencies or providers. It is also expected that the system will ingest and export data using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from a range of data sources.
• Enhance the journey planning system in a way that will help better inform customers when planning a journey, including individuals that have a physical disability, hidden disability, sensory impairment or cognitive impairment.
• Improve fare aggregation to help customers not only cost a journey, based on their requirements e.g. shortest distance, cheapest ticket etc. but also available options to purchase tickets for any leg of a journey where retail is available. It is proposed that a payment could then be made by either handing off to the operators website, or possibly completing the transaction within a third party website portal.
• Enhance disruption management information and services currently available in order to minimise the impact of travel disruption. This will help better inform customers to re-plan their journey using available travel options.
• Deliver new and improved Website and App (IOS/Android) services to ensure customers can interact in a simple but effective manner via digital platforms when planning a journey, while considering the accessibility requirements of individuals that have a disability.