A public transport timetable (also timetable and

North American English North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), ...

schedule) is a document setting out information on

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, typi ...

service times, to assist passengers with planning a trip. Typically, the timetable will list the times when a service is scheduled to arrive at and depart from specified locations. It may show all movements at a particular location or all movements on a particular route or for a particular stop. Traditionally this information was provided in printed form, for example as a leaflet or poster. It is now also often available in a variety of electronic formats. In the 2000s

public transport route 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 different ...

s / intermodal journey planners have proliferated and offer traveller the convenience that the computer program looks at all timetables so the traveller doesn't need to. A "timetable" may also refer to the same information in abstract form, not specifically published, e.g. "A new timetable has been introduced".

History

The first compilation of railway timetables in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

was produced in 1839 by

George Bradshaw George Bradshaw (29 July 1800 – 6 September 1853) was an English cartographer, printer and publisher. He developed Bradshaw's Guide, a widely sold series of combined railway guides and timetables. Biography Bradshaw was born at Windsor Brid ...

. Greater speeds and the need for more accurate timings led to the introduction of standard

railway time Railway time was the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November 1840, the first recorded occasion when different local mean times were synchronised and a single standard time applied. The key ...

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

timetables in 1840, when all their trains were scheduled to "London time", i.e.

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a c ...

(GMT), which replaced

solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time (sundial ti ...

. Until railway time was introduced, local times for London,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

could differ by as much as 16 to 20 minutes; in India and North America these differences could be 60 minutes or more. The ''

European Rail Timetable The ''European Rail Timetable'', more commonly known by its former names, the ''Thomas Cook European Timetable'', the ''Thomas Cook Continental Timetable'' or simply ''Cook's Timetable'', is an international timetable of selected passenger rail ...

'', a

compendium A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a s ...

of the schedules of major European railway services, has been in publication since 1873 (appearing monthly since 1883). Originally, and for most of its history, it was published by

Thomas Cook & Son Thomas Cook & Son, originally simply Thomas Cook, was a company founded by Thomas Cook, a cabinet-maker, in 1841 to carry temperance supporters by railway between the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. In 1851, Cook arrange ...

and included ''Thomas Cook'' or ''Cook's'' in its title. Although

Thomas Cook Group plc Thomas Cook Group plc was a global travel group, headquartered in the United Kingdom and listed on the London Stock Exchange from its formation on 19 June 2007 by the merger of Thomas Cook AG — successor to Thomas Cook & Son — ...

ceased publication in 2013, the ''Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable'' was revived by a new company in early 2014 as simply the ''European Rail Timetable''. From 1981 to 2010, Cook also produced a similar bi-monthly Overseas volume covering the rest of the world, and some of that content was moved into the ''European Timetable'' in 2011.

Representation

A timetable can be produced dynamically, on request, for a particular journey on a particular day around a particular time (see journey planner, below), or in a timetable that gives an overview of all services in a particular category and is valid for a specified period. The latter could take the form of a book, leaflet, billboard, or a (set of) computer file(s), and makes it much easier to find out, for example, whether a transport service at a particular time is offered every day at that time, and if not, on which days; with a journey planner one may have to check every day of the year separately for this.

Matrix format

Many timetables comprise

table Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

s with services shown in columns, and stations or stops on the rows of the table. There will often be separate tables for each direction of travel, and often separate (pairs of) tables for working days, weekends and holidays. Generally the times shown against each station or stop will be the departure time, except for the last stop of the service which will be the arrival time. The left hand column will list the stations in route order, and the other columns are arranged from left to right in chronological order. If the service is scheduled to wait, both arrival and departure times might be shown on consecutive rows. If a slow service is overtaken by a fast service, the slow service will often occupy more than one column, to keep the times in order. There may be additional rows showing connecting services. In most parts of the world times are shown using the

24-hour clock The modern 24-hour clock, popularly referred to in the United States as military time, is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours (and minutes) pa ...

(although in the United States the 12-hour clock, with the addition of "am/A" or "pm/P" or with pm times in

bold In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech. Methods and use The most common methods in W ...

, is more often used). If services run at the same minutes past each hour for part of the day, the legend "and at the same minutes past each hour" or similar wording may be shown instead of individual timings. Other information may be shown, often at the tops of the columns, such as day(s) of operation, validity of tickets for each service, whether seat reservations are required, the type of vehicle used (e.g. for heritage railways and

airline timetable Airline timetables are printed pamphlets or folders that many airlines have traditionally used to inform passengers of several different things, such as schedules, fleet, security, in-flight entertainment, food menus, baggage weight restrictions, ...

s), the availability of on-board facilities such as refreshments, availability of classes, and a service number. Timetables with services arranged in rows of tables and stops or stations in columns are less common but otherwise similar to timetables with services in columns.

Stop-specific displays

Some timetables, particularly at

railway stations A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

and

bus stop A bus stop is a place where buses stop for passengers to get on and off the bus. The construction of bus stops tends to reflect the level of usage, where stops at busy locations may have shelters, seating, and possibly electronic passenger ...

s, list the times that services depart from that location, sometimes with other information such as destinations and stopping conditions. Again, there may be separate lists for different days of the week. There may be a separate list for each line/direction, or a combined chronological list (as in the picture). In parts of mainland Europe train departures are listed on a yellow poster, and arrivals on a white poster. These posters are placed at entrances to stations and on platforms.

Electronic displays

Dynamic electronic displays in stations may be at a central place and list the next few departures for each line, or all departures in the next hour. Displays on platforms usually just show the next departure (or perhaps the next few) from that platform.

Formats

Timetables may be printed as books, booklets, folded or plain cards or paper,

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text ...

s, or hand-written on posters or

blackboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made o ...

s, shown on back-lit displays, or published on-line or as SMS or text messages. With the development of the internet and electronic systems, conventional thick paper timetables are gradually being replaced by website searching or CD-ROM style timetables, and the publication of comprehensive printed timetables is generally decreasing. Transport schedule data itself is increasingly being made available to the public digitally, as specified in the

General Transit Feed Specification GTFS, which stands for General Transit Feed Specification or (originally) Google Transit Feed Specification, defines a common format for public transportation schedules and associated geographic information. GTFS contains only static or schedul ...

(GTFS) format. Time schedule-01

Scheduling

In many modern

systems, timetables and rostering are generated by computer, with the operators specifying the required operating span, minimum frequencies, route length/time and other such factors. Design of the schedule may aim to make times memorable for passengers, through the use of

clock-face scheduling A clock-face schedule or cyclic schedule is a timetable system under which public transport services run at consistent intervals, as opposed to a timetable that is purely driven by demand and has irregular headways. The name derives from the fac ...

— services departing at regular intervals, at the same times every hour. This is less likely to apply at peak times, when the priority is optimum utilisation of available vehicles and staff.

Headway services

In large cities services may be so frequent that consulting a timetable is unnecessary. In some cases

operators do not publish public timetables for busy times of day, or they may simply state "services run every 3–5 minutes" (or words to that effect), which is the norm for buses in some cities such as Hong Kong even during off-peak hours.

Gallery

File:1844 LIRR schedule.jpg, An 1844 timetable for the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average week ...

File:1850 Bradshaw Whitby.jpg, Bradshaw's railway timetable File:Bus timetable.JPG, A simple bus timetable (2005) on the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

island of Astipalea File:TRA Taipei Station split-flap display 20101211.jpg, A

flap display A split-flap display, or sometimes simply a flap display, is a digital electromechanical display device that presents changeable alphanumeric text, and occasionally fixed graphics. Often used as a public transport timetable in airports or ...

Taipei Station Taipei Main Station () is a railway and metro station in Taipei, Taiwan. It is served by Taiwan High Speed Rail, the Taiwan Railways Administration, and the Taipei Metro. It is also connected through underground passageways to the terminal sta ...

, Taiwan File:BusTimetable.jpg, Times and prices on printed display,

Playa del Carmen Playa del Carmen, known colloquially as 'Playa', is a resort city located along the Caribbean Sea in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is part of the municipality of Solidaridad. As of 2020, the city's population was just over 300,000 peopl ...

, Mexico File:Reading Buses Timetable Example 1.jpg, A modern stop-specific bus timetable in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

, United Kingdom

International timetables

*''

'', formerly titled ''Thomas Cook European Timetable'' A monthly timetable book of major trains, some bus and ferry services in Europe. *''

Thomas Cook Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was an English businessman. He is best known for founding the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was also one of the initial developers of the "package tour" including travel, accommodatio ...

Overseas Timetable'' A bi-monthly timetable book of major trains, and some bus and ferry services outside Europe, ceased December 2010. *OAG Flight Guide A monthly air timetable book published by OAG (Official Airline Guide), and covers all airlines and airports in the world.

National timetables

America

United States

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

System Timetable The official timetable book, published twice a year.

Asia

China

*China Railway Passenger Train Timetable （全国铁路旅客列车时刻表） *China Railway Passenger Express Train Timetable（全国铁路旅客快车时刻表） Published twice a year by China Railway Publishing, in Chinese. The former timetable includes all trains, the latter fast express trains only. *Chinese Railway Timetable Published irregularly (last January 2015) by Duncan Peattie, in English. It includes all trains shown in the Chinese Railway Passenger Train Timetable, but not all stations.

India

*Trains at a Glance Published once a year in English and Hindi.

Japan

The first regularly published appeared in 1894, published by a private company. By the time of the nationalization of Japanese railways in 1906, three competing timetables were being published and it was decided that only one official timetable should be offered to the public. Five thousand copies of the first official timetable were published in January 1915. In 2010, two printed national timetables were available; one published by

JTB Corporation (aka JTB), is the largest travel agency in Japan and one of the largest travel agencies in the world. It specializes in tourism. There are branches all over the world to help Japanese and non-Japanese guests in both private leisure and corpo ...

and one published by the ''Transportation News Company/Kotsu Shimbunsha'', itself owned by all constituent companies of the

Japan Railways Group The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as the or simply JR, consists of seven for-profit stock companies that took over most of the assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) on April 1, 1987. Mo ...

(barring the

RTRI , or , is the technical research company under the Japan Railways group of companies. Overview RTRI was established in its current form in 1986 just before Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatised and split into separate JR group compani ...

) and

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...

. These thick books - the February 2009 edition of the JTB timetable, for example, contains 1152 pages - are published every month and cover all stations and trains of JR and private railways, as well as long-distance bus, ferry and air services. For frequent JR urban lines, subway trains, private railways and urban buses, only summary timetables are shown. In 2009, a book was published to mark the 1000th edition of the JTB timetable, containing reproductions of all one thousand covers, selected timetables and maps, and articles on the way the timetable is produced. There are also many searchable online timetables covering all forms of transport, for example http://www.hyperdia.com/. Timetables for PDAs, mobile phones and PCs are readily available.

South Korea

*Tourism Transport Timetable (월간 관광교통 시각표) Published every month and covers all trains, highway bus, ferry and domestic air services.

Europe

Every year, in December and June, the European train timetables are amended. There are seldom major changes to important routes, but the change allows for alterations to international services and for seasonal variation. Currently the dates for the European train timetable changes are usually the Sunday of the second weekend in June and in December. In the months leading up to the changeover date booking will be restricted as some railway operators are sometimes late loading in the new data (between several weeks and a few days before the change). However, in Switzerland timetable changes only happen once a year in December. In Switzerland major changes happen only in odd years. One of the most comprehensive European-wide timetable information is provided by the electronic timetable search engine of German Railways

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the ...

DB BAHN - TravelService - Query page
Reiseauskunft.bahn.de. Retrieved on 2013-10-05. (information is also available in Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Turkish). The same information, but differently presented, one also find on the online timetables by the

Swiss Federal Railways Swiss Federal Railways (german: link=no, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, ''SBB''; french: link=no, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses, ''CFF''; it, Ferrovie federali svizzere, ''FFS'') is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usuall ...

(in English, German, French, and Italian) and the timetable by the Czech Ministry of Transport (in Czech, and - however not to every detail - in English and German).

Germany

*Ihr Reiseplan This is a free timetable leaflet distributed in express train and has information about the departure, arrival time of the train and connecting services. For many years the “Kursbuch Gesamtausgabe” ("complete timetable"), a very thick timetable book, was published but its contents are now available on the

website and CD ROM.

Italy

*Pozzorario generale Covers most trains.

Netherlands

See Timetables for the Netherlands.

Switzerland

In Switzerland timetables change happens only once a year in December all over Switzerland for any kind of public transportation means; major changes even happens only every second year on odd years. A large annual publication consisting of all Swiss railways, funiculairs, most lake and river boats, cableways, Swiss PostBus, and all other country buses timetables.

=Official Timetable

=
Official Timetable of Switzerland
in one multi-lingual edition, while the particular timetables themselves are kept in the language of the respectively covered Swiss area.

*The printed version (three volumes; city transit networks (buses and tramways) are only referenced, but not included) has been cancelled from season 2017/18 onwards. Therefore, only the synoptic map of the first volume is up-to-date: **Volume 1 for railways/funiculairs, cableways, and boats
synoptic map
**Volumes 2 and 3 for buses in western and eastern Switzerland
synoptic map (only last version of 2017)

=Coherent, integrated online timetables

= All online timetables provide information for the same timetable as the printed ''Official Timetable'' plus all Swiss city transit systems and networks as well as most railways in Europe. The user interface as well as all Swiss railways stations, and bus, boat, cable car stops are transparently available in German, French, Italian, and English spelling. *By Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS):
SBB CFF FFS online

of all SBB CFF FFS railway stations as PDF files.

by SBB CFF FFS. *By Swiss PostBus (PostAuto, CarPostal, AutoPostale):
Swiss PostBus online ... and Mobile App

Network routes

United Kingdom

*''GB Rail Timetable'' Published by

The Stationery Office The Stationery Office (TSO) is a British publishing company created in 1996 when the publishing arm of His Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised. It is the official publisher and the distributor for legislation, command and house paper ...

(the official UK Government publishers), and contains information, according to its title page, "with permission of

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's len ...

and obtained under licence the

Rail Delivery Group The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), previously the Association of Train Operating Companies, is the British rail industry membership body that brings together passenger and freight rail companies, Network Rail and High Speed 2. History From 24 Oc ...

. It closely resembles Network Rail's former timetable book, which ceased publication in 2007, but PDF timetable files are on its website.
It appears twice per year: *In May, titled ''GB Rail Timetable Summer Edition'' lasting from May to December *In December, titled ''GB Rail Timetable Winter Edition'' lasting from December to May

=History

= Until 1974 each region of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four (British ra ...

published its own timetable. The first Great Britain timetable started on 4 May 1974. Prior to that the only joint publication between regions had been a publication of 30 principal passenger services from 1962, following the demise of Bradshaw in 1961. The final printed all-line timetable was produced by Network Rail in 2007, after which versions were published both by the Stationery Office and Middleton Press. Subsequently, The Stationery Office version has been discontinued and for the summer of 2016 Middleton Press only published a reprint of the UK pages of the European Rail Timetable, although a limited two-volume comprehensive version belatedly appeared in August.Rail Chronology: A Brief History of the National Rail Timetable and Its Predecessors
/ref>

References

External links

* illustrated history of the timetable {{DEFAULTSORT:Public Transport Timetable Public transport information systems Transportation planning Scheduling (transportation)