I'm looking at how to add price data to railraptor, but it might mean sacrificing the fully-offline capability... once I have prices it should absolutely be possible to build a filter along the lines of "find me the cheapest popular destinations that are at least 50 miles away".
I sent you some feedback on a routing failure because I didn't want to post exactly where I live here.
I think you need pricing. Works offline is cool, but why not pull in the pricing if people are online? Train fares are so variable depending on time of day, especially if they go via London. I could have a trip that could be £300 cheaper by taking a 30 minute longer trip that avoids London. I need pricing to get my best journey.
Thank you for the feedback, pricing is definitely next on my to do list if I can make it work.
Some feedback: I don't think it can route through London as it isn't aware of tube connections between stations? And the classic stress test of Penzance to Thurso is too long for the routing algorithm, but I imagine that's beyond scope?
Pricing would make this a super useful tool!
The routeing data is pretty complex - there are layers on layers of data files and rules to cover all the edge cases and weird stations/routes. It's been really fun to dig into it.
I'll look into adding more possible connections to see if it can find the Penzance route - I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever actually completed the 27 hour journey!
A map feature might help people do "spur of the moment" planning if they are looking for more of an adventure than any specific location.
When booking flights, I use sites like Kiwi and Skyscanner that let you do flexible searches - multiple destinations, custom connections, creative routes, etc. But rail search feels oddly constrained. All the UK train operators offer basically the same experience, and surface the exact same routes. I always suspected there were better or just different options that weren’t being shown. Where is the "Skyscanner for trains"?
After digging through the national rail data feeds, I decided to have a go at building my own route planner that runs completely offline in the browser. This gave me the freedom to implement more complex filters, search to/from multiple stations, and do it without a persistent network connection.
Now I'm finding routes that aren't offered by the standard train operators, connecting at different stations, and finding it's often easier to travel to different stations (some I'd never heard of) that get me closer and faster to where I actually want to go!
It's still a little rough and I'd like to add more features such as fares, VSTP data, and direct-links to book tickets, but wanted to share early and get some initial feedback before investing more time into it. So, thanks in advance - let me know what you think.