How CACI helped Network Rail develop & manage an open data service

Background

National Rail Open Data (NROD) provides the public with access to a large number of operational data feeds to encourage both greater interest in rail and the development of innovative products that are of use to passengers and the rail industry. CACI processes and manages the NROD platform with the aim of providing continual and easy access to users.

Challenge

Network Rail provides a variety of data in different formats from XML, JSON and rail proprietary data structures. These are received with varying levels of frequency from static data to real-time data updated at up to 100 messages per second during peak hours.

Our instruction from Network Rail was for the data to be made available with no obfuscation or filtering applied to make it as accessible and easy to use as possible.

Solution

To achieve this, we offered options for users by providing some conversions (such as to JSON) and enriching data with metadata. We also used AWS infrastructure and highly available components like AWS ECS (Elastic Compute Service) and S3 (Simple Scalable Storage) to improve access and availability.

Users were provided a portal for account management, allowing them to change details such as their username and password and access links to documentation and endpoint information for the data to aid their use and interpretation. A separate portal manages access for industry clients invited by Network Rail, allowing them to connect to a more stable platform for use in industry applications.

Results

NROD is now used by an engaged, passionate community of over 600 registered users who apply the data in a variety of ways. Since the data was first made available, a range of websites and apps have been created, including Open Train Times, which provides real-time arrival and departure information for each train company and helps passengers plan their journeys, along with Recent Train Times, demonstrating individual trains’ performance and helping users assess the punctuality of different train services to plan their journeys accordingly.

CACI has been collaborating with industry clients and representatives of the broader public client community in a working group to give updates and receive feedback on how best the community can be served. We also discuss enhancements and how to collaborate to address users’ needs at quarterly meetings.

A Grafana dashboard has been developed to keep users informed on the system’s status, including message rates, message latency of the main feeds and an update field showing system downtime updates.

To ensure NROD is accessible to as many audiences as possible, we have worked with Network Rail to provide the same data within the Rail Data Marketplace (RDM), adding to the 100+ other rail data products now available on this platform.

Testimonials

Network Rail’s Open Data is essential to supporting the development of new applications and services in rail. CACI’s expertise in large scale infrastructure, complex datasets and real-time feeds is key to this, ensuring that the user community of developers and rail professionals always has access to the data and that it is easy to use. By directly engaging with users, CACI continually improves the service, further enabling innovation in rail.

–  Chris Stanley, Head of Asset Data at Network Rail