Where does the train data come from?

Justin Clarke-Salt

All departure information in Next3Trains comes from National Rail Open Data, licensed via the Rail Data Marketplace. It’s the same live departure board feed that drives the screens at the station. The attribution is shown in the app under Settings → About.

The app displays that data and doesn’t modify it. If National Rail’s feed is having problems, the app will show a clear error rather than pretend - and if a train’s status looks wrong on the departure board at the station too, that’s the upstream data rather than the app.

What’s covered

Great Britain National Rail, and only that - around 2,578 stations. The operators that appear on National Rail departure boards are all included, so London Overground, the Elizabeth line and Merseyrail are covered.

Not covered: the London Underground, buses, trams, light rail that isn’t part of National Rail, Northern Ireland, and anywhere outside Great Britain.

Why the data can be a few minutes old

The app fetches fresh data whenever you open it or pull to refresh, so what you see in the app is current.

Widgets, complications and Live Activities are different. iOS strictly limits how often those can update in the background, and the backend that pushes updates for them deliberately reuses recently fetched data rather than hammering the National Rail API - in practice data behind those surfaces can be up to about four or five minutes old. That’s a reasonable trade for battery life and for staying within the free data allowance, but it’s why the number on your Lock Screen might lag the number in the app by a minute or two.

If you need the most current information, open the app - or, on iOS 17 and later, tap the refresh icon in the widget’s header.