QR launches new app for phones and tablets

[Derwan]

Queensland Rail has launched a new app for phones and tablets:

http://www.queenslandrail.com.au/forcustomers/plan/queensland-rail-mobile-app

The Queensland Rail Mobile App is an information hub vital to your rail journey available through the touch of your fingertips.

The app is simple to use and includes great features such as:

    Report maintenance issues which have occurred on a train, train station or within the rail corridor.
    Instant access to the lost property form to report a lost item
    Ability to find your local station to view location, station hours and facility information.
    Easy access to the TransLink journey planner

The app is free to download from the App Store and Google Play.

[ozbob]

Great..  Thanks

[red dragin]

I thought they where trying to reduce the number of communication methods in use. :conf

[bcasey]

I thought they where trying to reduce the number of communication methods in use. :conf

I think Translink might have said that, but I doubt this app was created with much of their input.

Not a lot of features in this app, the report maintenance problems and lost property are good ideas, but the other two are just duplicating what is already available in the translink app (I haven't tried the app myself, just going on what is given in the descriptions).

[SurfRail]

I'm afraid this is just another symptom of silo thinking.

Ideally, QR should not have its own branding, or its own app, or its own customer communications strategy.  It should be TransLink doing ALL this stuff, because there shouldn't be multiple agencies doing these things.  This is why the communications about disruptions are so utterly broken - wouldn't be the case if this was all in-house.

In Perth, this concept is so pervasive that even the bus drivers employed by the 3 private contractors all wear a standard Transperth branded uniform.

QR should spend less of its time on marketing and more on making the blasted track circuits waterproof.

What is so hard about this stuff? 

[ozbob]

I am of two minds on this.  I think the maintenance and lost property items are good. Gives direct communication with the operator.  There is a bit of frustration I think with the present TransLink set up, interactions with TransLink are with a call centre ..

I have suggested they add the bus routes that service stations as appropriate, which would be a link to TransLink journey planner for the detailed information.

[Arnz]

I'm afraid this is just another symptom of silo thinking.

Ideally, QR should not have its own branding, or its own app, or its own customer communications strategy.  It should be TransLink doing ALL this stuff, because there shouldn't be multiple agencies doing these things.  This is why the communications about disruptions are so utterly broken - wouldn't be the case if this was all in-house.

In Perth, this concept is so pervasive that even the bus drivers employed by the 3 private contractors all wear a standard Transperth branded uniform.

QR should spend less of its time on marketing and more on making the blasted track circuits waterproof.

What is so hard about this stuff?

In my opinion, QR and BT should not exist as separate identities.  Ideally, the state government should pass legislation forcing the BCC to hand over BT to the state government, then merge QR and BT into the one public operator.  Thus that way, it allows the combined company in conjunction with TransLink to organise a proper bus review with proper feeder services into the major bus/busway interchanges and the major railway stations (where applicable)

[red dragin]

I am of two minds on this.  I think the maintenance and lost property items are good. Gives direct communication with the operator. 

They are certainly features that should be added to the MyTranslink App. Select service type (bus/train/ferry/LR) then the form allows you to fill in bus/train/ferry/LR number etc.

This information could then be forwarded directly to the operator, or even just auto forwarded by Translink based on header information.

[Derwan]

Ideally, QR should not have its own branding, or its own app, or its own customer communications strategy.  It should be TransLink doing ALL this stuff, because there shouldn't be multiple agencies doing these things.  This is why the communications about disruptions are so utterly broken - wouldn't be the case if this was all in-house.

In many ways I agree with this and was surprised when QR said they were releasing an app.

Unfortunately TransLink has dropped the ball when it comes to their app.  They released a "working" version and that seems to be it.  There have been no improvements.  It doesn't even run at the native resolution of an iPhone 6/6s, making it look "tacky" and "old".

TransLink has a LOT to do in their app.  They need to add the journey planner into the app (rather than providing a wrapper to the website), add the ability to save favourite journeys and provide Go Card management.  This is all before they can look at things such as maintenance and lost property as a holistic one-stop-shop approach.

QR would be waiting forever for TransLink to add this functionality to their app - so chose to release their own app to make up for the deficiencies of TransLink.  I don't blame them.

[ozbob]

Well summed up Derwan.   

Until TransLink is made back into an authority with resources and clout may as well roll along with apps everywhere hey?

I might write a 524 app one day, it can have a hot link to the Goodna Razzle Dazzle courtesy bus times ...

[red dragin]

I might write a 524 app one day, it can have a hot link to the Goodna Razzle Dazzle courtesy bus times ...

[hU0N]

In my opinion, QR and BT should not exist as separate identities.  Ideally, the state government should pass legislation forcing the BCC to hand over BT to the state government, then merge QR and BT into the one public operator.

I don't think that would be an ideal situation at all. It might be better than the current situation, which is so shot through with a culture of unhelpful silo thinking. But I don't think it's by any means ideal.

Many places around the world (in the U.S. in particular) where public transport is run by a single regional authority or operator are actually looking to devolve some of the responsibility to the local authority because of dysfunction in the regional operator.

Plus there is the economic concern. BT wears around 20% of the operating cost of the buses, and does so in order to retain some degree of autonomy within the Translink system. Take away that autonomy, or take the whole operation in its entirety, and you lose the council money. Maybe Translink could reform the network to give similar or better service for much much less, but if they couldn't, there'd be new pressure to either cut service or increase fares. Not to mention the pressure to redistribute resources outside of BT.

I agree that BT's network is not great, but I don't think it's particularly guaranteed that a state run network would be both better and cheaper.

End of the day, the problems with BT are cultural not structural, and unless you deal with the culture, a drastic restructure runs the risk of simply stirring a whole new raft of problems into the pot.

[SurfRail]

^ The Americans are not the people to be emulating.  The best North American systems are in Canada, which don't have this devolved nonsense.  They have the city or regional authority running the lot, including urban rail.

The only way to get rid of the modal arguments is to p%ss the Council off out of the picture completely.

If they don't wish to contribute to the funding of public transport, let them keep their money.  There would easily be ways to save money given the fairly bloated nature of the BT operation.

If it means Brisbane has to wait for service upgrades, I don't see that as being the State's fault - I see an intransigent and incompetent local authority when compared to those in the surrounding region which are perfectly prepared to spend money on rail infrastructure that isn't just limited to exorbitantly priced LX eliminations.

[ozbob]

Conceptually at least, we have two public transport systems/network in SEQ.

There is the Brisbane Transport bus operation (supplemented with ferry - a minor but useful component)

There is the rest of Brisbane (rail) and the bus & ferry network apart from Brisbane Transport.

BCC tends to hold the rest at ransom, saying TransLink is responsible for the network when it suits, and other times just acts unilaterally without regard to the overall network for SEQ at all.

It is little wonder that it is a mess.

[bcasey]

Ideally, QR should not have its own branding, or its own app, or its own customer communications strategy.  It should be TransLink doing ALL this stuff, because there shouldn't be multiple agencies doing these things.  This is why the communications about disruptions are so utterly broken - wouldn't be the case if this was all in-house.

In many ways I agree with this and was surprised when QR said they were releasing an app.

Unfortunately TransLink has dropped the ball when it comes to their app.  They released a "working" version and that seems to be it.  There have been no improvements.  It doesn't even run at the native resolution of an iPhone 6/6s, making it look "tacky" and "old".

TransLink has a LOT to do in their app.  They need to add the journey planner into the app (rather than providing a wrapper to the website), add the ability to save favourite journeys and provide Go Card management.  This is all before they can look at things such as maintenance and lost property as a holistic one-stop-shop approach.

QR would be waiting forever for TransLink to add this functionality to their app - so chose to release their own app to make up for the deficiencies of TransLink.  I don't blame them.

Ideally, neither QR or Translink should be wasting money on developing their own apps. Instead they should be providing as much data as they can, as accurately as they can and in a timely manner, along with APIs to things like the trip planner (which is available), lost property, maintenance reporting, etc, and let 3rd party app developers come up with the app ideas, combining the different data sources and apis along with other external data in ways that QR or Translink would have never have thought of.

All these two apps do is discourage 3rd party developers from even trying to develop new apps, since they are just creating more competition in an already saturated market, particularly because they are being provided free of charge with no advertising, which greatly reduces the ways that a 3rd party app could be monetised.

[#Metro]

LOL, RBOT Should have our own app. 
It would probably be the only integrated one.

[dancingmongoose]

The one advantage QR could have by providing it's own app is for TravelTrain information. I haven't had a look at the app but I doubt it's been mentioned. It's not GTFS which doesn't help (and why my project doesn't just grab GTFS data like every 3rd party app out there)

[BrizCommuter]

Great, does the QR app display "this train will be a 100% on-time statistic" as it runs unscheduled express through my station?

[verbatim9]

Downloaded it today. Dunno what all the fuss is? Pretty much duplication for what is around. Money better spent making sure all service changes are interfaced in real time to the Translink and Third party Apps.

[Derwan]

Downloaded it today. Dunno what all the fuss is? Pretty much duplication for what is around.

Not really.  No other app allows you to report issues directly to QR, report lost property or see station opening hours.  The only "duplication" is the Journey Planner, but the button is just a link that opens Safari, so the actual functionality isn't duplicated.

Something else I was thinking - prior to the app, what do you think most people would do if they saw an issue on the QR network?  They would probably post it on social media as a way to "report" it.  It's the easiest thing for people to do.  But this presents 2 problems.  First, it's not an efficient way to report issues.  Some details might be missing and someone has to collate the information and send it to the relevant area.  The second issue is that reports/photos of issues on public social media pages creates a negative image.

The app provides a simple way for people to report issues, collects all of the necessary information and automatically passes it on to the relevant area in QR - all this without public posts that could create a negative image.

[Fares_Fair]

Downloaded it today. Dunno what all the fuss is? Pretty much duplication for what is around.

Not really.  No other app allows you to report issues directly to QR, report lost property or see station opening hours.  The only "duplication" is the Journey Planner, but the button is just a link that opens Safari, so the actual functionality isn't duplicated.

Something else I was thinking - prior to the app, what do you think most people would do if they saw an issue on the QR network?  They would probably post it on social media as a way to "report" it.  It's the easiest thing for people to do.  But this presents 2 problems.  First, it's not an efficient way to report issues.  Some details might be missing and someone has to collate the information and send it to the relevant area.  The second issue is that reports/photos of issues on public social media pages creates a negative image.

The app provides a simple way for people to report issues, collects all of the necessary information and automatically passes it on to the relevant area in QR - all this without public posts that could create a negative image.

Concur, it is the best method.
The App is very good IMHO, it allows you to even take pictures of what you're reporting.