Journey Planner - Unable to Render Public Transport Results

[mrodent33]

WTAF is going on with this piece of crap?

Is anyone at all at TFL taking responsibility for this? Or applying the least degree of quality control. ALL computer applications need maintenance: there are NO exceptions.

It’s got to the stage now that any journey I enter produces results which mention neither rail nor buses. Only how long it takes to walk or cycle the route.

This piece of utterly dysfunctional crap has no place being online in its current condition and should be taken offline until whichever thick jobsworth at TFL who has notional responsibility for it has been replaced by a competent person.

OS: mainly Windoze, occasionally Linux.
Browser: Firefox.
Add-ons: Adblocker Ultimate, Ublock Origin. ALL professionally designed websites are able to handle appropriately these add-ons.

[mjcarchive]

Why not quote an example rather than post a generalised offensive rant?

[mrodent33]

OK …

try “Ravensbourne to Blackfriars” … there’s branch of Thameslink that does that route. I just tried again: NOTHING comes up except “ooh, you could cycle or you could walk”

or try “Catford* to Lewisham University Hospital” … there are about 5 bus routes that do that: NOTHING comes up. I tell a lie: “ooh, you could cycle or you could walk”

Are you seriously telling me you haven’t had this kind of experience. Ever? Please tell me your results from the above 2 routes.

Sometimes an offensive tone is exactly what is required. This was however no rant, and no-one could accurately characterise my post as “generalised”… Clearly I am making a specific charge, I want specific change and I also want idiots to be replaced by someone with a brain between their ears.

---

* this is “Catford Catford”, not “Catford Bridge”… they are about 30 yards from one another

[misar]

@mrodent33

try “Ravensbourne to Blackfriars” … there’s branch of Thameslink that does that route. I just tried again: NOTHING comes up except “ooh, you could cycle or you could walk”

or try “Catford* to Lewisham University Hospital” … there are about 5 bus routes that do that: NOTHING comes up. I tell a lie: “ooh, you could cycle or you could walk”

No idea what you are doing but both your examples work fine for me.

[mjcarchive]

They also work for me, though the rail options for Ravensbourne-Blackfriars didn’t include a direct service (engineering?). Har4d to see how just walk and cycle could come up unless other modes had been deselected - but O’ll do you the credit of assuming that it can’t be that simple!

An offensive tone rarely helps in my opinion but seems especially counterproductive (in the sense of putting people’s backs up) when you are raising the issue for the first time. Being a “constructive critic” usually works best for me.

Right now TfL IT is naturally consumed by the need to get over the cyberattack and I can’t imagine that that is great for morale, so it seems to me a particularly insensitive time to write off the whole of Journey Planner (and call the people working on it incompetent thick jobsworths). You don’t think that is offensive; I beg to differ.

[briantist]

Welcome @mrodent33

Could you check your preferences and perhaps post them?

[mrodent33]

All preferences selcted exactly as yours: screenshot attached.

“Right now TfL IT is naturally consumed by the need to get over the cyberattack and I can’t imagine that that is great for morale, so it seems to me a particularly insensitive time to write off the whole of Journey Planner”

Are you suggesting that TfL people responsible for JP actually use this forum? Well, that’s another issue: like many large organisations, TfL make it exceptionally frustrating to contact anyone about technical (IT) issues.

I only came across this forum by chance searching: it’s certainly not adequately advertised on the TfL site, if this forum is indeed meant to be the channel for users to provide feedback on technical problems to the people in charge. I assumed this was a TfL users forum. How intriguing.

PS just did the RVB to BFR search again (specifically “Bromley Park, Ravensbourne Station” to “Blackfriars”). Again nothing, except walking/cycling.

PPS could anyone who posts further please confirm that they are using a computer (desktop/laptop?). That is what I’m using. There may be differences with use on a phone/tablet of whatever type.

[mjcarchive]

@mrodent33
I’m using a desktop computer.

The people responsible for JP (and open data and a whole lot more) most certainly do look at and contribute to the forum. I’m not sure how I came across the forum but if I google “Tfl forum” it is the first thing that comes up, at least for me. Second if I google “TfL technical”.

There are people much more technically able than me on the forum, both inside and outside TfL and good advice is freely given (though perhaps not so freely if you call them incompetent!). If you do a search for “Journey Planner” and scroll down you will find a fair number of posts about, er, the idiosyncrasies of Journey Planner. Some get explained, some may be insoluble without breaking the bank, but others do get sorted.

[arturs]

@mrodent33

I only came across this forum by chance searching: it’s certainly not adequately advertised on the TfL site, if this forum is indeed meant to be the channel for users to provide feedback on technical problems to the people in charge. I assumed this was a TfL users forum. How intriguing.

As per the about page, the forum is here for “discussion of the TfL Unified API, Open Data and anything else technical and transport related”. I presume the lack of links to this forum form the main TfL website is precisely to discourage the general public from joining, as the admins that monitor this forum are indeed from the technical teams that deal with the Open Data and APIs, and as such aren’t able to provide customer service for other aspects of the business.

One of the admins mentioned here that they’ve even had to set up an email auto-reply due to the general public finding and contacting the email address intended for developers for things that are out of their control.

@mrodent33

PS just did the RVB to BFR search again (specifically “Bromley Park, Ravensbourne Station” to “Blackfriars”). Again nothing, except walking/cycling.

As with the others, I am (on a laptop) correctly seeing the available rail options for the same search, and all other examples quoted, - I am getting 4 public transport journey options for a departure around 12:00 on Monday 23rd.

Here is the link to my full journey planner search, does opening this link directly have any difference in result than you typing in your search manually?
https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/results?JpType=publictransport&InputFrom=Bromley+Park%2C+Ravensbourne+Station&From=Bromley+Park%2C+Ravensbourne+Station&FromId=1001236&InputTo=Blackfriars&To=Blackfriars&ToId=1000023&Time=1200&Via=

The rail options always appear in search between the “Cycling and other options” box and the “earlier/later journeys” links - could you scroll down and screenshot what - if anything - is between those 2 when you open the link above?

Also I note that in your screenshot uBlock shows that it has blocked 3 elements of the page - could you give disabling the adblock a go to see if that helps, after a page refresh? I’ve also got uBlock enabled and the page works for me, but it’s worth giving a go just in case yours is set up differently.

@mjcarchive

An offensive tone rarely helps in my opinion but seems especially counterproductive (in the sense of putting people’s backs up) when you are raising the issue for the first time. Being a “constructive critic” usually works best for me.

Right now TfL IT is naturally consumed by the need to get over the cyberattack and I can’t imagine that that is great for morale, so it seems to me a particularly insensitive time to write off the whole of Journey Planner (and call the people working on it incompetent thick jobsworths). You don’t think that is offensive; I beg to differ.

Finally I’d like to echo @mjcarchive’s view here - the admins on this forum are very helpful and have a great track record of resolving issues reported by users on here. On top of that, (non-TfL) developer members of this forum like myself are often also happy to help new members of the forum that haven’t used the APIs before and need a foot up to get them going.

[jamesevans]

Hi @mrodent33

As you’re probably aware, under the Data Protection Act 2018 (UK implementation of EU GDPR), we are required to request and record consent for cookies on our customer-facing websites.

We deploy a 3rd party tool called Cookiebot to accomplish this requirement. When you first visit our website, you will usually be presented with the following consent pop-up. This records your consent (or lack of) as a cookie and that cookie is used across the main TfL website as well as our microsites (e.g. Oyster, Contactless, Cycle Hire).

We have found recently that a number of tools, including Firefox Private Browsing and some browser extensions like the ones you mention, (in our opinion incorrectly) block the Cookiebot JS from loading believing it to be tracking your activity.

A few weeks ago, we started receiving reports through our contact centre of the behaviour in Journey Planner you mentioned.

We raised a bug and found the behaviour occurred when the JS was being blocked. This has been passed to our development team to implement a fix. We don’t currently have a target date for this fix due to the restrictions currently on us related to the cyber incident response currently underway.

This bug is unintended behaviour and the website should work with only essential cookies. With every release we do, we run a large amounts of automated testing simulating various browsers in various configurations. However, the changes to how Firefox Private Browsing are reasonably recent so we’ve not yet incorporated this into testing. Also, we are unable to test against extensions such as the ones you are using.

As previously advised by others responding to this post, the primary focus of this forum is to allow collaboration between ourselves in the TfL Digital teams and the Open Data consumer community. Although we are mostly the same people looking after the TfL Website, we suggest these issues are logged through our contact centre so they can be tracked and responded to correctly. In the case of this bug, they have been provided with the details of why this occurs and suggested ways of working around this.

In regards to your self-acknowledged “offensive tone”, please take a look at our FAQs which include the forum rules. We’re happy to accept feedback/criticism as long as it is done respectfully and you’ll find us a lot more amenable to helping if this is the approach taken.

Many thanks,
James

[mrodent33]

I’ve also got uBlock enabled and the page works for me, but it’s worth giving a go just in case yours is set up differently.

Tried that (add-ons uBlock and Adblocker disabled): same results. Obviously James Evans’ post explains that this is now a “known issue”.
Also tried Chrome: correct results, i.e. the issue is Firefox-specific.

A few weeks ago, we started receiving reports through our contact centre of the behaviour in Journey Planner you mentioned.

The response to this reported glitch has not been adequate: the glitch with uBlock Origin/Adblock Ultimate should have been investigated very quickly and then, well before actually finding a solution, your development team should have put a very clear banner or similar, for Firefox users, saying “this tool may not work with Firefox using add-on uBlock/Adblock Ultimate… we are working on a solution”.

Why didn’t you do this? Why don’t you do it now?

(Though in fact I obviously still seem to be getting incorrect results even with these add-ons disabled: so until further notice and subject to further testing it seems that this banner should be displayed for ALL Firefox users…)

I confirm that I started noticing this malfunctioning many weeks ago now.

After further testing
By disabling all add-ons (I had 3, the 3rd being one called “I still don’t care about cookies”: avoids tiresome GDPR-style requests for consent of the kind alluded to), and after deleting and creating my cookie for TfL, I get correct results with Firefox. I’m going to add back those add-ons one by one …

… and further …
It now seems that “I still don’t care about cookies” may be the culprit. It appears to be a fairly innocuous thing, but my provisional belief is now that it reacts very badly with this “Cookiebot” tool. Therefore the banner I suggested should probably read “this tool may not work with Firefox using add-on ‘I still don’t care about cookies’”. This add-on is quite niche however. I am not aware of it ever having caused any problems hitherto, although in the reviews on its homepage there are a few reports of some websites having problems with it.

To me it sounds like “Cookiebot” may be rather too aggressive (and/or unintelligent), and may be interfering with other cookie-related add-ons by the sound of these other reported problems… Obviously the correct way Cookiebot should interact with “I still don’t care…” should be: “Do you give consent?”, “Yes”, “OK”. As I say, I am not aware of any of the many thousands of websites I have visited since installing “I don’t care…”/“I still don’t care…” ever once having had problems with it.

Finally: the fact that the malfunctioning presumed to be due to the Cookiebot+“I still don’t care” combination doesn’t actually stop the app functioning, but instead delivers erroneous results is a software fault in itself which needs resolving. Why would a failure to ascertain consent lead to results saying “Duh, you can cycle or walk if you want …”? It should either make it fail or not fail. I suspect the deficiency there may be quite easy to identify in the JP code*. Please resolve it.

* …could it be a case of some super-simple JS script which doesn’t actually need to query any databases, just calculating walking/cycling times on the basis of geographical distances? Apart from being misleading and baffling in the cited circumstances, that also still shouldn’t function if the user has not given GDPR-style consent.

[jamesevans]

hi @mrodent33

The issue is only experienced by less than 0.01% of our website’s users. We have to prioritise other bugs and project deliverables above others and this was due to be looked at a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we don’t have unlimited development resource to look at everything immediately.

In terms of applying a banner to the Journey Planner pages, yes this is possible, but we would be providing a disruptive user experience to all those other users if they were unaffected. If there were a way to target this to affected users, we would. To be honest, with the dozens of extensions that block various resources, it would be hard to do this. Also, to load a banner based on the lack of a resource would be as much, if not more, effort to implement as it would be to fix.

If you had reported this to customer services when you noticed the issue several weeks ago, we would have provided you with the relevant workarounds/advice while we resolve the issue.

In terms of how the functionality fails here, it’s in inadvertent failure so it fails in the way that it does, i.e. this is not by design. We agree that it should still function if the cookie consent JS is not fired.

Many thanks,
James

[mrodent33]

We agree that it should still function if the cookie consent JS is not fired.

I’m not clear what you’re saying there. The experience I had, where the only results delivered were to say “you can walk or cycle” … with no buses or rail or anything else (anything else obviously requiring a query to be run)… is the worst experience your JP app can give a user, since there is no suggestion that the app has a problem locally on my machine. And no hint whatsoever that this could be caused by a cookie add-on. I had every reason to believe it was the app on the server which was malfunctioning.

I agree that this is very niche and there are very few users of the “I still don’t care about cookies” add-on. At least I now know a very obvious workaround.

Quite clearly, if cookie consent is not given, either the app should work properly, or it should not work at all: it should not result in a half-way house, where the user gets only “helpful” suggestions about walking or cycling, which give a completely misleading appearance of the app working but malfunctioning massively.

[arturs]

@mrodent33

We agree that it should still function if the cookie consent JS is not fired.

I’m not clear what you’re saying there

@mrodent33

if cookie consent is not given, […] the app should work properly

That is indeed what James is saying there.

[Mulder]

I just want to say that I am surprised that you didn’t delete this post and banned the user. Nobody deserves this amount of abuse and it comes at a particularly sensitive time as I am having users of my app being equally abusive about countdown being down. Zero empathy, zero information to actually help solve the problem (initially until someone had to point it out).

Some people should just be silenced and definitely don’t deserve to have the issue fixed. There’s a way to report an issue and then there’s a way to just project your own sad life onto others.

I have reported many issues here and it got resolved without the need to resort to insults and calling people idiots. There’s only one idiot around and everyone can see it.

Thank you for all your hard work and I appreciate your speedy assistance on so many issues.

Clearly this person didn’t even deserve an answer as they just carried on acting in a horrible way.

Completely beyond the scope of this forum, but people get back the energy they put out - I am certain of that. Good luck OP, you will be treated the way you treat others.

Oh, and please don’t take down the journey planner. Thank you for providing this free service that we don’t have to pay for.

[jamesevans]

The application is failing in an unhandled/unexpected way, hence the weird experience you are getting and not a plain error being returned. I am not a front-end developer, but I believe this will be due to the way that the page renders asynchronously and returns different results when they are ready. I will have to wait until the development team have investigated further to provide a proper comment on that. I will say this though, it is quite an old application and we hope to modernise it soon. We will look at error handling as part of that

[netstruggler]

At the very least it would be helpful if the thread title could be amended as it’s clear now that disabling the journey planner is an unreasonable suggestion, because it works correctly for the 99.99% of users who haven’t taken deliberate steps to try and hide the fact that they are using it.

[jamesevans]

Good point - I’ve changed the title to help find this in future if needed. It would be an extreme thing for us to remove our most-used function! I’ve kept the original text of the post though as I don’t want people to think I am censoring opinion/criticism etc. I did remind the OP of the forum rules earlier since which, the tone is more civil.