THALES

Sky’s the limit for new rail Journey Planning solution

Thales’ Online Journey Planner solution (OJP) – which provides a one-stop-shop for passengers planning rail journeys in the UK – has evolved over time and is built as a large three-tier monolithic solution.

Historically it provided a flexible foundation for National Rail Enquiries, but as OJP supported new functionality and channels, the platform became more complex.

The new National Rail Enquiries Modernisation (NREM) project was set up by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) to provide all the existing applications’ functionality, but split into smaller, simpler, independent components. The components are deployable in a modern cloud environment, using only the resources they require. This was an important development, as the existing legacy solution required all servers to be available 24/7, resulting in costs even when not in use.

The new design also needed to handle up to 10 million journey requests a day, with the APIs required 99.99% of the time, with a response rate of 300ms.

Through the RDG, Thales Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) had the opportunity to re-design the OJP solution and transform the existing complex system into something simpler and more cost effective. The technical solution involved a move to the cloud, developing individual simplified microservices, all highly secure, reliable and scalable.

Before undertaking the project, Thales GTS carried out a review of ways of working within the team, recognising that a new, more streamlined delivery and agile approach would be required. The review included creating a new office environment, making remote working easy and accessible, and bringing new team members into a self-managed team.

The agile approach involved progressive assurance, with requirements mapped to an automated test using Business-Driven-Development and Automated test frameworks. This tied in with a requirements’ management tool, mapped against Jira User Stories to test and deliver evidence.

This iterative approach built customer confidence, enabled changes as the programme progressed, continuous delivery, as well as ensuring no surprises on completion.

To support this approach, documentation techniques were modernised using the Arc42 template – a practical and pragmatic way to document architecture online.

The new solution was delivered on time. It offers a secure, reliable, cost effective, future-proofed foundation for creating services and components. It also provides business benefits as the old system undergoes decommissioning.

For a detailed view of the modern tech stack used, please refer to the architecture diagram.

CONTACT:

Andrew Hunter