National Rail Enquiries hit by rush hour real-time information outage on mobile app and website

Rail passengers across the UK are struggling to access real-time information about train departures and arrivals, due to technical difficulties blighting National Rail Enquiries.

The organisation confirmed via its Twitter page that it is currently in the throes of finding a fix for the problems, which have left users of National Rail Enquiries website and mobile app unable to access information about train departures, arrivals, delays and cancellations.

The issue appears to be isolated to the delivery of real-time information, with users being greeted with error messages when searching for information about specific live departures and arrivals via the National Rail Enquiries website and its mobile app.

Passengers have also reported issues with the real-time information being passed on to them at stations, with reports on social media of trains being labelled as cancelled, delayed or disappearing from departure boards completely at short notice, only to be reinstated moments later.

The problems appear to have begun in the early hours of this morning, with National Rail Enquiries first raising the alarm just before 5am – the onset of rush hour – on Thursday 5 September.

At the time of writing, the company said it is unclear at this point when the problem will be fixed. Computer Weekly also contacted National Rail Enquiries for further information on the exact nature of the problems, and when it anticipates the problems will be fixed, but had received no response at the time of publication.

“We are experiencing an issue with real-time information for trains. Our suppliers are working to resolve it. We apologise for any inconvenience,” the company added, via a post on its Twitter page.

National Rail Enquiries bills itself as the “definitive source” of customer information for all passenger rail services on the National Rail network across England, Wales and Scotland, and claims to handle around 2.5 million journey planning queries each week.

However, railway users have expressed dismay on Twitter this morning at the lack of warning provided on the National Rail Enquiries app and website about the technical difficulties the company is facing.

Any idea when your real time information will be sorted? Also, why no message on the website to alert people so they don't get stuck with the neverending blue circle of doom?

— Poodgiepooh (@poodgiepooh) September 5, 2019