The working condition of 1,500 lifts and 300 escalators across nearly 500 stations will soon be available for passengers to view in aid of helping them plan their journeys through stations with real-time knowledge of the access available.
This state-of-the-art development, delivered through Network Rail’s Research and Development Programme, uses monitoring devices on lifts and escalators to produce an application programming interface which gives live asset condition to third parties through an open data source.
Currently 80% of lifts and 60% of escalators are fitted with this equipment with the remaining sites to be installed over the next 12-18 months.
Previous open source data releases have swiftly been snapped up by app and web developers using the information to create easy to use apps that are hugely beneficial to passengers when planning journeys.