Lumiappaday #128: Rail Planner demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800

Rail Planner is a brilliant must have app for those regularly commuting on trains (especially to new locations).

I’ve been using this for about 3 months and I’m really pleased with the app. The initial hesitation to try this was the price. £4.99. It’s rather steep, but over time I think it has paid for itself with me avoiding needing to call customer service to check for delayed trains or wasting time having to confirm the next train and what platform.

Planning Journeys

Planning journeys is simple enough, just set the from station and destination (as well as date and time) and you’ll be presented with all the available journeys, giving information on the name of the service, number of station changes, depart/arrival time and duration. You can even see (in red) any delays in  the service and what time to expect it instead.

Pinned tiles and live tracker

A really helpful feature is being able to pin speific journeys on your time table.

Checking web services, you usually can’t check past journeys (or journeys you’re in the middle of because time has already passed). Once a journey is taking place, you’ve even got a live update showing you precisely where and what station the train is currently at. From the pinned journey, there’s a home button so you can jump straight back into the app.

Departures

If there are journeys you make often, you can set departures that you make most often and you’ll get a list of upcoming departures in the departures panel.

Nearest Station

This is useful to have within the app itself, this finds the nearest station to you, showing it on the map. This ties in with the next feature. It would be nice to perhaps integrate directions in case you’re not at the station.

Next Train Home

After setting your home station you can press net train home from the current location

– Apologies for the blurry video. I had no idea my 60D had decided to become out of focus. It is such an annoying camera. I dedicate this out of focus Lumiappaday to Nokia Australia :p.

#128) Rail Planner 

Price: £4.99

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/8dce4a78-1b3e-e011-854c-00237de2db9e

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8A9YNSaqcs

Developer Blurb:

Rail Planner brings a high quality UK rail information app to Windows Phone 7. Fully licensed by National Rail Enquiries, Rail Planner can be used to plan upcoming journeys and get up to the minute status of any active train service in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland).

Rail Planner provides “Live Departure” information for every train station in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland). The “Journey Planner” allows you to quickly find the fastest route between any two stations and includes real-time service service disruptions such as late running trains, cancellations or even engineering works.

Never miss another train again with Sprite Dynamics’ Rail Planner -the premier UK rail information app for Windows Phone 7.

Please note that Rail Planner does not provide journey planning or departure boards for London Underground services.

 

New in version 2.0:

– Fast app switching

– Pin Journey Plans and Live Departure Boards to your phone’s start screen

– Search for stations using their 3 letter codes

– Share Journey Plans quickly via email

– New stations including Fishguard & Goodwick

– Bug fixes

Rating:

Design: 9

Usability: 10

Performance: 10

Price: 8

The price looks really steep at £4.99 though if you have a use for it, it immediately pays for itself after a few journeys. No need to call the expensive 08 numbers from mobile to check where the train is, no

Category: Applications, Lumiappaday, Nokia, Windows Phone