Translink: just close the doors and turn off the lights

August 9 2011, 7:52pm


From the BBC: Fewer bus services and reducing the number of full-time drivers are among cost cutting measures being introduced by Translink, it has emerged. Although frequency is being reduced, Translink said no routes will be cancelled. So, in essence, rather than three buses coming all at once, there will just be two…       I have absolutely had it with Translink. For the last two+ years, I have attempted to talk to them, to reason with them regarding opening up their data. I firmly believed that if they opened their data and made it easier to get access to their timetables and routes then more people would take buses and trains. We have worked through DETI, DRD and other organisations. We have attempted to deal with their arcane IT infrastructure and their obfuscatory marketing department. We have spoken to their management, to their mid-level managers. We have even been vaguely complimentary about their awful web site. But at every turn, Translink have blocked our access to the data. They gave an instance of the data to OpenDataNI, a project within the DFP (which has since fallen by the wayside with the cuts) and have flatly refused to give the local community access to use the (now outdated) timetable and route data for anything other than developer demos. The local developer and designer community invested hundreds of man hours of work into decoding the archaic file formats, into developing an API and a database, in writing code to make the data accessible and developing designs for user interfaces for the web and mobile. All of that effort has been wasted, all of that effort has been blocked. Translink, an active go-co (government-owned corporation) have systematically blocked local industry from using the innovation they were giving freely to create opportunity and enterprise. So, in light of todays news, I am sickened. I give up.

disqu