Lift us up where we belong: UK's Network Rail puts elevators online

Network Rail, the UK's publicly owned rail infrastructure body, has promised to give passengers' journeys a lift by connecting its sprawling estate of elevator and escalators to the world as an open data source. The hope is to let travellers know in advance before they travel or in sufficient time before they alight, whether …

[Antonius_Prime]

Simon will be *very* happy...

I mean, hasn't the BOfH been doing things remotely to elevators for years?

(In fact, this is precisely where my mind went when I read the article...)

[JetSetJim]

Re: Simon will be *very* happy...

One would hope that this is read-only, not remote control.....

Also hope the work isn't outsourced to Serco

[steelpillow]

Re: Simon will be *very* happy...

"One would hope that this is read-only, not remote control"

Just follow back the IP of the data source to discover how nonexistent is the security of its smart controller.

Still, Somebody Else's Problem, eh, no need to monitor the data server for miscreant traffic analysers, let's go for a beer instead.

"Oh, hello Simon, fancy meeting you here. What's that app on your phone doing?"

[Chris G]

PPM

Planned preventative maintenance may be worth considering too, I have foundthat to be an excellent way of avoiding down time for most equipment.

I have run maintenance on a number of contracts where downtime would result in a fine after a short period of time, nothing quite like a dent in profits to focus the bosses minds on the best SOPs.

[N2]

Re: PPM

Agreed, one would hope a PMS system is in place and all thats neccessary is to make a subset of the data available.

Having run the PMS for a reactor plant, it really does help!

Icon, because its best avoided.

[HPCJohn]

Re: PPM

At FOSDEM this year there was a marvellous talk by a German company. They have microphones on escalators, and have deep learnign models listening for clanks and squeaks. This gives early warning of breakdowns

https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/predictive_maintenance/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: PPM

Don’t get me started on the madness that are risk based maintenance processes. Of gem and ofwat both forcing undesirable engineering practise to save a few quid.

[Peter Galbavy]

I wonder what the JSON tags will be for "stink of piss" and "someone's thrown up in this one" ?

[RockBurner]

Emojis.

[MadAsHell]

So much cheaper and easier than actually making them all work...

Sigh! What a great dodge to avoid the tedious effort of actually making them work. But PPM is sooooo expensive...

[Allan George Dyer]

Think of the possibilities...

If this is successful at getting status information to the public, they could extend it to inform maintenance teams at some point.

[IGotOut]

Here's an idea...

...make sure all train stations are wheel chair friendly as you are legally obliged to do, rather than piss around with window dressing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here's an idea...

Surely it is possible that some train stations might indeed be wheelchair friendly ... right up until the point when the lifts break down and need fixing ... in which case this information would be of some help. Provision of this information might not be enough to meet wider accessibility needs, but dismissing it as "window dressing" seems unfair.

[steelpillow]

Re: Here's an idea...

I am not sure that discriminating against wheelchair users because the lift is fscked again would be legally watertight, never mind the morality stinks worse than the piss.

[TeeCee]

Re: Here's an idea...

A great idea if you are building a railway network from scratch.

If, on the other hand, you're living with existing infrastructure that was designed and built before such legislation was even dreamed of, not really an option.

[Fred Dibnah]

Re: Here's an idea...

Station rebuilds & redesigns are a constant. Everyone pays for the railways through government subsidies, including disabled people.

[Doctor Syntax]

"real-time updates which can be plugged into the creations of any enterprising app or web developer by means of an application programming interface."

What could posssssibly go wrong?

[Tony Gathercole ...]

What could posssssibly go right?

Actually, there's quite a good record of third-party applications picking up data provided by Network Rail and other parties in the railway operations sector. The success of apps such as "Real Time Trains" (and many others) is a good example.

As once a frequent traveller into and out of London Euston, it was very useful to know which (changed) platform a train would be using before it went up on the indicator boards and thereby avoid the masssed crowds waiting in the main station area for the service to be called. Many's the time I was able to be right at the front of the queue at the barriers when they opened (or even on the train before they did!)

Recent developments in RTT I believe even give data on the actual operaton of individual services and can show why they are being delayed by the running of the train in front (very limited areas or the network right now).

[Mike 137]

Re: What could posssssibly go right?

"...out of London Euston, it was very useful to know which (changed) platform a train would be using before it went up on the indicator boards..."

It would be more useful if the platforms were indicated on the boards a bit more than a couple of minutes before departure, as is now commonly the case. As time passes the boards move advertised trains leftwards, and they have even been known to disappear entirely before the platform is indicated, but in most cases the short notice leads to a stampede in which anyone less than an athlete gets trampled on and can even fail to reach the platform in time.

Giving people with an "app" advance warning ahead of those relying on the departure board seems somehow a less than ideal solution.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: What could posssssibly go right?

"Actually, there's quite a good record of third-party applications picking up data provided by Network Rail"

It will necessarily need some sort of hole in the systems perimeter to get access to the API and there's a good - or bad - record of miscreants taking advantage of any possible weakness. Those holes had better be well defended.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if it will report any elevators* that are sulking in the basement...

* or Happy Vertical People Transporters

[Dan 55]

"The data comes from "monitoring devices" on lifts and escalators"

Yep, they've plugged their SCADA PLCs into the Internet. There's nothing that can go wrong there. No sir.

[MJI]

I used to take a bike on trains

And that was hard to push, especially with all my stuff tied on. But twice I was really naughty.

I rode up a ramp into a BG and another time I rode along the underpass.

I made a lot of use of station lifts in those 2 years.

Another time line shut so had to get to next station by road, all my stuff on a bus, but not my bike, sat their thinking until the BR chap said to ride it and told me where next station was, and I beat the bus.

I was a bit annoyed as I had to buy a ticket for it anyway and I also had to use petrol.

[Fred Dibnah]

Re: I used to take a bike on trains

And you also had to buy more cake.

[morrisonzka]

Like this thing that they make everything public

[JDPower]

I'm sure this will be a great comfort to wheelchair users who are still in the exact same end position of not being able to make their journey. How they find out doesn't fix that ultimate issue. I suspect this is more about keeping pissed off customers away from the station so they don't have to deal with them.

[Cynic_999]

I heard ...

That Putin once got stuck in a lift for 3 hours due to a power failure. A similar power failure saw Trump stuck on an escalator for 3 hours.

[iron]

Here's an out of the box thought from left field for them... Fix the bloody elevators!

They will have to visit them to install the IoS gubbins so why not fix them instead?

[martynhare]

May I announce..

LiftSurfer Pro - the premium way to avoid crushing issues of the 21st century! Never again will one have to worry about a crowded carriage ever again!

[Annoyed Grunt]

Urm, is there such as thing as congestion anymore on the rail service?

[werdsmith]

There was last Sunday when I travelled and encountered rail replacement buses.

[werdsmith]

In 198x I remember using a modem to dial into a computer belonging to a London council and observing lifts moving up and down residential tower blocks on a VT100 terminal with the lifts represented by character graphics.