Unit allocations and improved planner performance

RailChecker is pleased to announce that unit allocations from the GEMINI system are now available through both the app and website! This covers most operators across the UK and will greatly improve the level of information provided you in the short term as well as the long term.

As some of you may be aware, there is a major project underway to replace the back-end system behind RailChecker. This has made significant progress, and is expected to roll out in the coming weeks. This does mean that for the time being, the only improvements that will be immediately visible to you will be the “Allocations” line in the app and on the website - additional features on the existing system are not viable as it is already operating at a high level of utilisation and it is set to be retired soon.

This data will not affect the unit illustrations currently shown, as these are powered by a different system, but once the new system goes live it is expected that these will be mostly based off of data coming from GEMINI.

Whilst the data is slowly populating on the RailChecker database, there may be some formatting issues with how the allocation information is shown. This is expected to clear by tomorrow (20th September).

Another improvement that many of you will be happy to see is changes to the journey planner. In recent months the performance of the journey planner has declined to unacceptable levels. This is now being addressed by temporarily withdrawing the in-house planner engine from use and replacing it with the National Rail Online Journey Planner (OJP) system. This will provide multiple benefits, such as improved reliability and accuracy of proposed itineraries but also improved stability of RailChecker as a whole and quicker query times (now down to about one second on average). It is hoped that this bump in performance will bridge the gap between now and when the new system goes live, by which point it is anticipated that RailChecker will switch back to an improved, more powerful in-house planning engine.

Thank you for your patience over the last few months, I understand that some of you are frustrated by the lack of updates - there is only one of me and the revenue from RailChecker just about covers the operational costs. This means that I cannot work on this as much as I would like to. In terms of a progress update, the back end system for managing long term schedules is now done and work is now moving over to the real-time data feed. The current plan is for the back-end switchover to happen within the next few weeks. More info will be posted closer to the time.

-Robert

No guarantee is made with respect to the accuracy of information shown on RailChecker, the accuracy of data entered into GEMINI is the responsibility of the train operating company (and they do not provide any guarantees either). Not all train operating companies use GEMINI (e.g. London Overground) and some services may be excluded. This service may be withdrawn at any time.