Traveline is a

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 differe ...

service provided by a partnership between local authorities and transport operators in the UK to provide impartial and comprehensive information about public transport which has operated since 2000. It prepares comprehensive public transport data for the UK and provides a number of regional public transport journey planners.

History

Following on from a successful prototype one-number travel service developed by

Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes Blackburn with Dar ...

in 1999, the national Traveline organisation was established in 2000. A prototype national door-to-door journey for

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

(i.e. UK without

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

) - using the Lancashire Traveline model for regional journey planners - was available for evaluation by 'stakeholders and key opinion formers' by November 2003, and the service was officially launched by

Secretary of State for Transport The secretary of state for transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Departm ...

Alistair Darling Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, (28 November 1953 – 30 November 2023) was 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 ...

on 31 December 2004. In March 2010,

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

announced that the

NaPTAN The National Public Transport Access Node (NaPTAN) database is a UK nationwide system for uniquely identifying all the points of access to public transport in the UK. The dataset is closely associated with the National Public Transport Gazette ...

dataset would be released as

Open Data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

Operation

The Traveline regions assemble the public transport information within their areas and make it available through a number of local public transport journey planners. As of May 2014, all regions provide information for use within the

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 panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

journey planner, and as of December 2016 all regions were added to the

Apple Maps Apple Maps is a web mapping service developed by Apple Inc. As the default map system of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS, it provides directions and estimated times of arrival for driving, walking, cycling, and public trans ...

journey planner. Details of all bus stops in the country are assembled into the National Public Transport Access Nodes database (NaPTAN) which is updated daily. The organisation also maintains the associated National Public Transport Gazetteer of all place names, both formal and informal, that may be used to indicate the destination for a requested journey. These datasets are provided to both

and

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...

. They have also been released as

via

data.gov.uk data.gov.uk is a UK Government project to make available non-personal UK government data as open data. It was launched as closed beta in , and publicly launched in . As of February 2015, it contained over 19,343 datasets, rising to over 40,000 ...

. Public transport schedules were provided for use with the

Transport Direct Portal The Transport Direct Portal was a distributed Internet-based multi-modal journey planner providing information for travel in England, Wales and Scotland. It was managed by Transport Direct, a division of the Department for Transport. It was la ...

on a weekly basis for use within the 'national journey planner for Great Britain' until this portal was closed in September 2014. Once a year all the schedules for the county by all modes (including the information collected and maintained by Traveline) is assembled into the

National Public Transport Data Repository 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 whic ...

which is prepared every October is used for the creation of Core Accessibility Indicators for every part of the UK. This data is also used within products such as

MySociety mySociety is a UK-based registered charity, previously named UK Citizens Online Democracy. It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens. However, those tools were open source, so that th ...

Mapumental Mapumental was a web-based application for displaying journeys in terms of how long they take, rather than by distance, a technique also known as isochrone or geospatial mapping. It was developed by British organisation mySociety but was withdra ...

. Some bus operators provide information via the Electronic Bus Service Registration system using the

TransXChange TransXChange is a UK national XML based data standard for the interchange of bus route and timetable information between bus operators, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, local authorities and passenger transport executives, and others i ...

when passing information between operators, the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency and Traveline.

Organisational structure

For operational and data preparation purposes the UK is divided in the following regions/nations: The boundaries are not identical to the

Regions of England The regions of England, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. They were established in 1994 and follow the 1974–96 county borders. They are a continuation of the former 194 ...

Advisory body

The advisory body of the national organisation consists of the following organisations:- * Confederation of Passenger Transport *

Rail Delivery Group The Rail Delivery Group Limited (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. The RDG is a ...

Local Government Association The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national membership body for local government in England, local authorities in England and Wales. Its core membership is made up of 317 English councils and the 22 Welsh councils through the ...

* Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities *

Transport for London Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body responsible for most of the transport network in London, United Kingdom. TfL is the successor organization of the London Passenger Transport Board, which was established in 1933, and His ...

* Passenger Transport Executives Group * Association of Transport Coordinating Officers *

Welsh Government The Welsh Government ( ) is the Executive (government), executive arm of the Welsh devolution, devolved government of Wales. The government consists of Cabinet secretary, cabinet secretaries and Minister of State, ministers. It is led by the F ...

Scottish Government The Scottish Government (, ) is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was formed in 1999 as the Scottish Executive following the 1997 referendum on Scottish devolution, and is headquartered at St Andrew's House in ...

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport ...

* Translink

References

{{reflist

External links

Traveline official website
British travel websites Public transport information systems Route planning websites