Opening up rail data has helped Ian Shortman create a new way of negotiating Britain's train system

How a student used open data to beat national rail enquiries at its own game

How useful is open government data really? How much can you use to build things that make a difference to people's lives?

It turns out that some of the most useful is the least dramatic. Recently, the Association of Train Operating Companies opened up its own data vaults to the world.

It effectively means that National Rail Enquiries - which requires a licence to use its data - no longer has a monopoly on rail enquiries. Something which Bristol chemistry undergrad Ian Shortman took advantage of to create trains.im - an open source train timetable service.

Why bother? Shortman says it's easy to improve on the official site.

There are a few things that I found really annoying about the railway system.

• Not knowing the platform beforehand, especially when trying to make a quick connection

• When getting off before the train terminates, it can be hard to know which train is yours (i.e. it's final destination) on departure boards

• Not knowing your actual route

So, he took the CIF-formatted data to create a site where you can map out your journey, using OpenStreetMap and where you can easily access a list of all trains between two stations in a day, see routeing and expected intermediate times for entire train journeys and a map of the route.

The interface is simple, not cluttered, and works the same on desktops as mobile applications. With National Rail Enquiries' iPhone app costing £5, I think this public data should be easily accessible for free.

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