Real-Time Bus Information Planned for Railway Station

An image of how the display will appear, submitted with the planning application.

First Group, part-owners of the Avanti West Coast train operating company, has applied to install an electronic information display unit at Lancaster railway station that will help passengers making onward journeys by bus.

The touch-screen display, which will be sited at the foot of the stairs leading from the overbridge to Platform 3, will show details of onward bus connections and will include "real-time" information as well as scheduled times. It also incorporates a journey planner, although it is not clear at the moment whether this includes both bus and rail services.  The display also incorporates local visitor information.

Avanti West Coast, which operates trains between London, the West Midlands, Lancaster and Glasgow/Edinburgh, is required to provide such displays at twelve of the stations it manages as part of its franchise agreement entered into when it took over the service from Virgin Trains.

Previously, onward travel information was shown in the form of posters on the station, but the railway had great difficulty in keeping up with the frequent changes to bus services and the information was often out of date. The Bus Users' Group hopes that the new electronic display will not suffer from that problem, and also that it will not suffer from some of the problems experienced in its counterpart at Lancaster Bus Station.

No date has been given for the installation of the display, which is currently awaiting approval from Lancaster City Council.