History and strategy

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History

Transport Direct was announced as part of the Government's 10-year Plan in 2000 as a new, comprehensive, national transport information service, covering all modes of transport. The service includes rail times and includes the whole of Great Britain from London London Transport to the roads in Scotland.”

The non-profit service is funded and developed by the UK Department for Transport, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Executive.

In December 2002, a consortium led by Schlumberger, (now Atos Origin) was awarded the contract to design, build and operate the Transport Direct Portal.  The Portal will provide the main point of access to the information provided by the Transport Direct programme.

The first build of the Portal was completed in December 2003 and was made publicly available in July 2004. This was replaced by an enhanced version on 20 October 2004 and was officially launched on 31 December 2004.

Transport Direct works with public and private transport operators, who provide information either directly to Transport Direct or through our partner - traveline, who operate a public transport internet, telephone and text service (Traveline website)

Strategy

Four strategic objectives have been identified for Transport Direct:

1. Encourage and stimulate each passenger transport sector to develop high quality and accurate information and retailing systems.

2. Create a web Portal to enable users to find all available electronic travel information from a wide range of sources and ticket e-tailers.

3. Build on strategic objective 1 so that transport operators and retailers can develop integrated information and ticket sales for journeys involving more than one mode of transport, including, in the long term, how to get to public transport points by car.

4. Deliver Transport Direct as an integrated and comprehensive information service for all travel modes and mode combinations, which allows the user to submit their selection to an e-tailer without re-keying the enquiry.