Getting there with BODS

Thursday 5th December 2024

It’s something that’s happened since I retired so it’s a bit baffling and a struggle to keep up with, especially the tech side, but although the Bus Open Data Service has been a huge thing in the industry for some years it’s still having many ‘settling in’ issues.

It’s important, as not only is BODS responsible for providing data to the likes of Google maps, bustimes.org.uk, real time bus stop departure signs and bus companies’ own apps and websites showing the position of every bus with its expected departure times from bus stops along the route for the benefit of passengers, but the punctuality data is also used by Traffic Commissioners to determine whether bus companies are complying with laid down standards. BODS also includes timetables, fares and ticket information too, but these don’t vary hour by hour as vehicle location does.

For over two decades the Traffic Commissioners’ standard has stated 95% of departures from timing points along a route must fall within a ‘window of tolerance’ of no more than one minute early and five minutes late. For routes registered as frequent (defined as every ten minutes or better) the standard requires at least six departures within any period of 60 minutes with the interval between consecutive buses not exceeding 15 minutes.

The absolute minimum standard which an operator is expected to achieve is 70% of buses departing within the ‘window of tolerance’. Back in 2004 when the scheme was set up, failure to comply with this minimum could see a penalty imposed of £550 per licensed vehicle in the registered fleet with a graduated scale of penalty for better compliance rates – eg 80% compliance would lead to a £400 penalty per licensed vehicle. Despite being set 20 years ago I’m not aware these penalties have been changed. Perhaps they’re aligned to fuel duty paid by motorists!

Traffic Commissioners must take account of any ‘reasonable excuse’ for failure to comply, not least if there are circumstances outside the operator’s control, but it’s expected known regular traffic delays are taken into account when timetables are drawn up.

The crucial thing BODS has done is make available thousands and thousands of data records on punctuality which a bus company can use to hone its timetables and schedules to better reflect actual experience on the road. As we’ve seen, some bus companies are now taking this to an extreme and using AI to produce detailed variations, journey by journey, to reflect minute by minute changes between timing points across a day taking account of all the data thrown up.

This plethora of data has also meant bus companies now have their punctuality monitored by the regulator at a level never seen before.

In the old days VOSA bus monitors would undertake spot checks on street corners (aka sitting in café windows) manually writing down the registration number, bus route number and time of every departure observed and then ask the bus company to explain and justify variations from the required standard. That’s the system I was familiar with and was pleased never to be called to a Public Inquiry by the Traffic Commissioner even though our compliance was always below 95%.

That’s because in the real world of operating buses in a city prone to congestion with road conditions varying according to the weather, utilities digging holes, motorists parking indiscriminately, delivery drivers needing to stop a millimetre away from the delivery point even if it blocks the road, traffic lights malfunctioning, passengers needing extra assistance to board or alight etc etc etc it is simply impossible to achieve 95% compliance – a figure originally set from an arbitrary ‘finger in the air’ target by the Senior Traffic Commissioner of the day over 20 years ago and even in those days bearing no relationship to reality.

I lost much faith in the credibility of the Traffic Commissioners the day that arbitrary target was set, not least as we, along with all other like minded bus companies keen to grow the number of passengers travelling, were working our socks off to provide the most reliable and punctual service possible. We didn’t need a regulator to impose an arbitrary hypothetical target or a compliance officer sitting in a café taking notes, thanks very much.

Now, thanks to Open Data, the location of every bus is publicly available with its punctuality measured against published timetables meaning a punctuality score for a company is established day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute using, what can be, up to thousands of data inputs.

So what’s the problem? Why is it taking months, and years even, to ‘settle in’.

As the old saying goes about any system: Garbage in, garbage out.

Whereas DfT officials proclaimed information about the railway would be open data many years ago leading to many third party apps becoming available showing up to the minute details of train departure times and websites such as realtimetrains, opentraintimes and traksy being established, I don’t think they realised the same principles may not easily transfer over to making information about buses equally ‘open’.

I’m guessing there are well over 400,000 bus stops in Britain compared to just under 2,600 railway stations and roughly 250,000 miles of road compared to 10,000 miles of track with around 37,000 buses compared to, I would guess again, about 3,000 trains. So we’re talking about a completely different scale of data and, in particular, the issues surrounding satellite technology and the reliability and consistency of signal accuracy – which can make all the difference.

I recently spent some time with Norman Kemp and his team at Nu-Venture who have become very involved in BODS development in recent times with the DfT (and its consultants, KPMG) now keen to involve expertise at bus companies to make the BODS analysis tool known as ABODS more effective than its predecessor.

KPMG had been commissioned to establish the original BODS and did so without involving the bus industry so unsurprisingly, it came with many flaws. Thankfully this is now being refined with the help of a number of cross industry working groups.

Norman paid tribute to the enthusiasm of the suppliers, operators, data-consumers, local authorities and DfT/DVSA who now participate in the working groups, including the Operator Digital Initiative Group (OPDI) led by the much respected John Birtwistle from First Bus, the CPT’s own group aimed particularly at SME operators, and the work being done by Traveline. The Nu-Vetnure team are very pleased to be part of the effort to help find practical solutions.

During my visit I was shown many examples of issues thrown up by the current system and heard how these might be resolved. A fundamental underlying weakness has been the unreliability of bus stop locations through the NaPTAN (National Public Transport Access Nodes) system which allocates coordinates to all bus stops but is not as accurate as it could be. This Government database is overseen by local authorities and should be updated whenever a bus stop is moved, even slightly, following traffic management schemes, new lay-bys or other changes. All parties should use the same name for each bus stop too, but this doesn’t always happen.

Imagine adjusting coordinates of over 400,000 bus stop locations to ensure they’re accurate so satellite tracking can give timely and meaningful information to passengers waiting along the route as well as being used by the regulators to monitor company performance.

Another issue can be the positioning of GPS Adapters on the bus. The team at Nu-Venture have been trialling repositioning these devices with variable results.

A glaring issue demonstrated by Chris, Nu-Venture’s Admin Manager and a regular school-time bus driver, was a bus stop terminal point where the geo-fencing defining its location for BODS was far too restricted such one morning he was unable to park exactly level with the stop sign due to minor roadworks, so parked a short distance further along the road, but the satellite beaming down recorded his bus as having departed early as it could no longer detect the bus at what it had as the coordinates of the bus stop location, yet Chris was still very much present.

On occasions no data or incomplete data is recorded skewing the punctuality statistics and potentially misleading passengers as to the location of their bus. Chris gave an example of school children using an app to monitor where their bus is, spending extra time at home believing it was still on its way, yet it was already passing their bus stop due to inaccurate tracking data. It was only because Chris knew they are regular passengers he waited for them to appear at the bus stop.

Many bus companies now use Ticketer which comes with a vehicle tracking system yet Chris is able to demonstrate many examples where the BODS tracking..

… Ticketer tracking…

… and the GPS location used by bustimes.org all vary for the same bus on the same journey.

He showed me an example of a bus due to depart at 15:29 loading school children at 15:30 yet BODS shows the bus as ‘drifting’ (ie not stopped at the stop) and departing four minutes early at 1525, and because Ticketer is satellite-based, it shows the bus ‘drifting’ from its location until 15:30 and only bustimes .org accurately showed no drift and a departure at 15:30, as was the case.

Incomplete data can vary significantly during a day’s record of activity. Chris showed how it can be as high as up to 25% bringing into question the accuracy and therefore the relevance of the punctuality data.

This is pertinent when it comes to identifying issues at bus route level where knowledgeable managers need to interpret what might be inaccurate data but it also has implications where such data is made public.

Generally, the industry hasn’t been making this punctuality performance data public – not surprising bearing in mind the issues with its accuracy – but that was before Mayor Burnham’s Bee Network began issuing weekly reports claiming its yellow buses were far more punctual than the predecessor multi-coloured privately run buses. But have you noticed they’re trumpeting weekly punctuality results consistently below 80%? Back in the day, I wouldn’t have dared to publicly promote a result like that (even though it was what we were achieving) for fear of being called to a Public Inquiry by the Traffic Commissioners and being fined up to £120,000.

How times change, but despite BODS and all its data, noBODy can yet accurately report what is actually happening. And when it comes to punctuality that matters. To the minute. Especially for passengers monitoring when their bus is going to arrive at the bus stop from their nearby home. And also those DVSA bus monitors checking up on punctuality.

Here’s hoping Norman and Chris as well as all the others working hard to find resolutions to these issues are successful and passengers, and the Traffic Commissioners, can rely on the information and data that’s now openly available. It might also be the right time to review that arbitrary 95% figure.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.