Missing Northern Line Night Tube trips

Hi, last Saturday (02/07) the Northern Line resumed its Night Tube services. However, we could not see those Night Tube trips in the TxC data.

We were using the TxC files released Wednesday 27 June afternoon. Specifically, the Northern Line data was in the following file: tfl_1-NTN-_-y05-580160.xml. We also ran a script to find all the departures in that file on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd, and we could not find trips in the night between the 2nd and the 3rd (no trips between roughly 1AM and 5AM).

Competitors were also missing those trips, but we could see them in TfLGo.

Were we not reading the files correctly? Is there another file we should have looked for? It would be nice to get some help as we have had this issue in the past too (e.g. NYE 2022)

Thank you!

Nick from Citymapper

PS: in the data released this week, w/c 04/07, we CAN see Night Tube trains on the Northern for the upcoming weekends.

Going off of the file name, it appears that data was from WTT 58 which is the one that was operating until June 26th, so you weren’t reading the file incorrectly. WTT 59 is the current timetable (from June 27th) that includes Night Tube.

Although I will note that, from Fri 01/07 to Sun 03/07, timetable notice 137/22 was used instead of WTT 59 as a trial of Night Tube. Either way, it’s just a matter of the correct timetable missing from the TxC files

Welcome @ndjik

Just out of interest, how does the data from the XML file compare with https://content.tfl.gov.uk/wtt-59-northern-22-jun-22.pdf ?

Hi, The Night Tube schedules were not available to be imported until Wednesday 29 June when the return of the Night Tube on the Northern line was formally announced, this data was then available in the API on Thursday 30 June for all consumers of the data with the Night Tube resuming passenger service on Saturday 2 July.

Regards
Matthew
( cc @GerardButler )

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Hi, thank you all for the responses and thank you @briantist for the welcome :slight_smile:

To clarify, we were using the data released Wednesday 29 June afternoon (made a small typo in the original post). That TxC file had the NTN schedules attached above, so they must have been WTT 58. If my understanding is correct, this means the TxC export from Wednesday 29 June was simply missing the Night Tube trips?

@briantist I’m afraid I don’t really understand these detailed schedules…

Yes, the export from the 29th was missing the updated timetable that has the Night Tube trips. Essentially, it just had the timetable from the previous weekend.

The timetable that includes Night Tube for the Northern line is WTT 59.

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Hi @ndjik as mentioned above, the Night Tube schedules were not live until Thursday 30 June in the API after the systems had been updated, these files would have missed the last cut of the TxC files and so would not have been uploaded into the TxC until the following week. TxC files are only updated once a week but the API is updated every weekday. All users of the API would have had the Night Tube schedules available for there planning apps from Thursday 30 June.

Regards
Matthew ( cc @GerardButler )

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Thank you @arturs and @MScanlon for clarifying - this makes sense. Have a good weekend!

Nick