Current identifiers, their challenges, and industry solutions
Project number:
2023-STN-015
A new standard setting future direction on train service and path identifiers
'Provides a real understanding of the issues and…credible guidance on where we need to go and how we get there.'
The challenge
IT systems and staff have multiple ways of identifying a train service or path. Some systems create bespoke identifiers, with varying degrees of uniqueness. This has led to an increasing number of different identifiers being used to refer to the same timetabled service.
Issues can arise during communications, through either transfer or receipt of data because it may not be apparent which train service or path is being referred to. Additional work, manual intervention, or the use of other information may be required to establish the correct service. Sometimes this might not even be possible. In some cases, systems record over a dozen identifiers for a single train service.
What we did
This new standard stops systems needing to create their own identifiers, and it can harmonise data across operational systems and simplify system-to-system communications.
It shows how the industry could uniquely identify train services and paths, using a framework set out in the telematics National Technical Specification Notices (NTSNs). There is no proposal to change any current identifiers.
This standard sets out:
- guidance on train service and path identifiers used today
- requirements and guidance on how train services and paths are identified in telematics messages
- challenges with existing train service and path identifiers
- opportunities to overcome these challenges in the future.
Benefits delivered
This standard increases the industry’s knowledge of existing train service and path identifiers, who owns them, and how they are used. It also details their limitations so that expectations are managed.
Guidance is provided on telematics messages and how data related to identifiers is structured. This enables the industry to move towards system and supplier-agnostic sharing of information between organisations involved in the planning, preparation, and live operation of train services.
This guidance sets out aspirations to resolve today’s challenges. It enables a direction to be set without making requirements that are beyond current industry capability. This is an opportunity to set a future direction—without which, the industry is unlikely to move forward.