Real Time Information Services: National Rail Enquiries

National Rail Enquiries The National Rail set up an enquiries website when the power of the internet was realised in the early 2000s. It was a much more useful method for customers to gain information than to ring the busy call centres, customers can now get exactly what they want and when they want it. With the internet now readily available on smartphones, customers can find out if their are any delays whilst on the move, making the service more efficient.

Features:

• Homepage: At the homepage of the website, the customer is provided with a simple "menu-bar" interface at the top of the screen. On the page itself, there are mostly advertisements for travel, along with special offers by national rail and various shortcuts to different parts of the website. It has a simple, as well as having an aesthetically pleasing design. The simplicity of the design means that people who have less experience with the internet, especially the elderly.

The Homepage

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  Live Departure Boards: This area is found under the sub-menu of "Train times & tickets". Here the user can type in the station of their choice into the box to load a live departure board of that station, alerting the customer of any possible delays. If the customer cannot access the internet, they can text the station name to "84950" and it will provide information on live departures. The Train Tracker (text message) service is very useful, especially for people who cannot afford smart phones, or simply cannot access the internet.  At this area of the site, the customer can also check the facilities of a station (whether it has toilets, baby-changing facilities, bike sheds etc.) this allows people to plan ahead, to perhaps get off a station early in emergency situations.

The "Train times & tickets" area of the website.

Live Departure board for Leigh-on-Sea to London Fenchurch Street.

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  About your journey: At this page, the customer can find out more information about the journey itself; stations, destinations, maps and time tables. The main feature of this page is that customers can find which stations are nearest to certain destinations; such as theme parks, castles, hospitals etc. This is very useful for people who do not own cars and rely on public transport to get around. The destinations are arranged into colour coded categories to make the destinations even easier to locate.

The destinations list.

• Changes to train times: when the customer first encounters this part of the site, they are shown the current news on delays, shown in a similar way to a blog (oldest at the bottom). Each new information is placed into an individual table cell to avoid confusion. The page is updated 24/7 to ensure complete coverage of any delays. The format of the site itself is very clear and concise and the information can be found quickly and efficiently. The page also has an area showing "Future Disruptions", this gives a warning, allowing customers to change plans and claim a refund if they need to.