Travel site gripe

[RogerS]

What really annoys me about virtually all travel sites is that it seems impossible to find out a general idea of frequency and dates that a particular service runs. They insist on you entering a date and time ...and for the return journey..when you haven't a clue if they actually run on the day in question. Oohh..let's see, do you have a service on Monday at 10? No. OK....how about 11? No. OK....you get my drift.

So trying to plan anything involving joined up travel is nigh on impossible. Why can't they put a timetable on their site? Then you'd know that they only run on Fridays and can plan accordingly.

 

[AndyT]

What sites are you using, or should I say, what mode of transport are you after?
The national rail site lets you download a bespoke timetable for any journey (which the superior DB site did years before, for the whole of Europe.)
Our local bus site also lets you see whole timetables, but it does depend on how you ask the question a bit.

I think Skyscanner and kayak let you see daily frequencies for flights, but I don't use them so often!

 

[RogerS]

National Express for a start. I was interested to know when it travelled from Malvern to Gatwick. Most airlines. Our local bus service. Most holiday sites like Last Minute. Rail does seem much better.

 

[AndyT]

National Express for a start. I was interested to know when it travelled from Malvern to Gatwick. Most airlines. Our local bus service. Most holiday sites like Last Minute. Rail does seem much better.

Ok, here you go.

This is from the Nat Express site Timetables section by choosing Gatwick as a destination:

http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach_ims/pdf/destination_guides/Gatwick 10pp AtZ 2011.pdf

It looks like you need to go via Birmingham. This is easier to find out with the national site http://www.transportdirect.info .

For your local bus timetables, look here.

Airlines - go to Kayak on this page, then choose the "Direct Flights" button under "Reference". Enter your starting airport, and you get a complete, expandable list of scheduled flights from there.

There's an interesting balance to be struck by travel websites. Many people value the way that they join together different bits of the journey and take the complexity out of it, and can handle exceptions better for holidays, engineering work etc. I think most of them do a good job of removing complexity. But basic timetables do live on!

(And if you really want to, you can get the whole national rail timetable, 4,059 pages of it, as a free download here!)

 

[RogerS]

I'm intrigued to know how you found the National Express timetable. I went in to the Airports tab. There's the usual Book a ticket...my gripe..but I couldn't see any link to a timetable.

You are right about going via Birmingham..just got this reply from NE...

Depart Great Malvern at 11:10am and arrive Gatwick Airport at 18:45 I make that seven and a half hours :shock:

 

[AndyT]

I'm intrigued to know how you found the National Express timetable.

Start here on the homepage:

http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach/index.cfm

and scroll down to the bottom right hand corner for a clue!

 

[RogerS]

Doh!

 

[motownmartin]

I have the same trouble Roger, can't see for looking