A new version of the Translink app has been released. It appears to have simplified a lot of the functionality.
The ferry names look a bit ubsurd though, but thats more of a data issue.
I have been using the previous new version (released late last year) and was pretty disappointed with the overall user interface and experience. Have to say from a quick browse around this is a dramatic improvement.
Journey planning has been greatly improved, although the ânext departuresâ board for a specific stop/station seems to have been retained from the old version and is still a dogâs breakfast. Apparently the NCL rail bus (649) leaves from âPlatform 100â from my station, and the 12:52pm Nambour train is still showing service updates from a delayed 9am service running in the other direction.
Translink still have a lot of work to do. Iâm not sure why they struggle so much with designing a good UI.
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Nearby stop function is better now too
Theyâve also added nearby food and drink outlets as well as other services.
No contactless payment history integrated into the app yet though.
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It seems like theyâve removed some features that I found handy. I canât find a way to name locations anymore, although locations which were already named in the previous version retained their name.
You also canât edit the tiles on the home screen anymore. I liked being able to see the departures of nearby stops on the home screen without having to navigate away.
I hope it has some way to alert people of service cancellations and doesnât just default to showing the timetable for that service.
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I was having a play around with the app while waiting in line for the bus this morning, and it does looks like service cancellations are being more prominently displayed, but for my express services the cancellation notification were being displayed against all of the services for that particular route, rather than just the service being cancelled. Not sure if that is by design or a software/process limitation.
This is how it looks under departure view, with the all 571s displaying the cancellation notice for the 6:53am service - even at 7:38am:
While under the Journey Planner, in the initial options it is listed as a Message (all service updates are listed as a message - for these routes, the 1 Message here is regarding the opening of Rochedale Station - there are no cancellations showing for these services).
When you select a journey option, these messages are shown in an expanded view under the particular leg of the journey it pertains to. I tried to get a single screen capture, but it wasnât playing ball for some reason . Note - this is not the same journey as searched for above.
A couple of other things I did notice, when searching for locations, you had to be very specific - âCity Hallâ alone wasnât enough to get the top 4 suggestions apparently:
And even when I changed it to âBrisbane City Hall,â it was specifically the Clock Tower that came up in the top spot. Similarly, you may have noticed above that my journey from Loganholme was to â130 Queen Street Mallâ - this is because a suggestion for just Queen Street Mall didnât come up at all when I searched for it, only 130 Queen Street Mall (that address is specifically for The Pavilion Building - the building where McDonalds and KFC are).
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This is an issue with the way Translink publishes alerts for cancelled services. They attach it to a whole route rather than an individual service. The app just consumes these alerts and displays them on the app as published.
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MyTranslink is the legacy Translink app that has been around for quite some time.
The Translink App is the newer one will eventually replace MyTranslink. At this stage, however, it is an Early Release version, which is why the legacy version remains available.
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I have noticed some odd behaviour in the new Translink app.
For eg. If you put in a route from RBWH to Eight Mile Plains on the 29th of June, it appears to work correctly (as does Google Maps) and shows some bus routes.
Note: the journey planner website doesnt let me plan more than a month in advance.
However, once I put in the 30th of June, it tells me there are âNo connections availableâ. As in it cannot find a route at all! I believe this is some error due to M1 launching that day?
In Google Maps, it manages to find routes that day but recommends walking 17 minutes to the closest train station rather than catching one of the myriad of buses.
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