Congratulations @marcwlms

@marcwlms was our most influential user for April, and the winner of our £50 cash prize. Marc was an early adopter of Mynet Travel and uses the app to post his daily updates on the state of travel from Kent to London, and back again. Connected to his Twitter account, he not only shares his travel updates within the Live information feed, but with his Twitter followers as well. With regular posts during both his AM and PM commutes, we'd like to say a big thanks to Marc for his continued support and efforts to keep those who travel between the Kent coast and London up to date with the latest news.

Win £50 cash prize with mynet travel

We want to reward our loyal Mynet Travel users, with a £50 cash prize for being the 'Most Influential User' in April.

Engaging with our app, and becoming a reliable source for information to other users on your route, is exactly the kind of community spirit we want to encourage. Therefore if you post accurate and regular information about the status of your journey, and help contribute to the live stream of information available within Mynet Travel, we'll reward you. See Terms and Conditions below . . . . . and good luck!

The winner is the user who proves to be the most influential in the use of the Mynet Travel app.

Definition of 'Most Influential User':

This involves updating your journey status regularly and providing as much detail as possible in the 140 character limit. The detail can be either positive or negative, depending on the nature of your journey.

To ensure that we can track your entries, you will need to authorize the app with your existing twitter profile (this can be done in-app). If you don't already have a twitter account, you can set one up at www.twitter.com.

It is important you don't repeat your journey updates and use the app honestly. Creating multiple journey updates is a violation of these Terms and Conditions. It is also unacceptable to post from multiple accounts, and snyone found to be using multiple accounts to enter will be ineligible.

The competition will run on a 4 week cycle and the winner will be notified via twitter within a week of the end of the cycle. 

The winning amount is £50. This will take the form of a cheque sent via the post. Winners can either DM their postal address via twitter or by email to competition@mytravelnetwork.net

The competition is only open to UK residents, in the event of a tie the money will be split between the winners. The decision of My Travel Network Ltd is final.

NRE gets 750,000 hits on Sunday before icy Monday commute.

The news from NRE highlighting the incredible amount of traffic to their site during the bad weather last weekend is obviously encouraging for us at My Travel Network, especially as they're registering an increasing volume of traffic from mobile users.

Justin Cooke, CEO of Fortune Cookie, said, “Mobile usage will only continue to grow and the mobile NRE site will only continue to improve.  Of course, we cannot guarantee that rail travellers won’t suffer delays and disruptions, but we can guarantee they’ll know instantly about anything that affects normal service.”

Not only do we already hold the NRE updates on our servers, but we also keep track of news updates from the rail operators and local news services to ensure we can break the latest travel news within our live stream. However, more importantly, we can also distribute the latest comments from our users. This is real information, in real time from real people on trains and platforms around the UK, updated to our servers every 5 seconds.

We also provide instant access to the information you need. Once a journey has been added to 'My Journeys', you are only one 'touch' away from accessing the latest news on delays, disruption and cancellations specific to that route.

Oh, and did we mention . . . . . . . it's free!

Our journey so far . . . .

So, we've made it this far. An iPhone app, an Android app, and a Web app, from concept to launch in 13 months. Launched free for all, independent and without advertising. 

Regardless of how successful the app now becomes, for two commuters who started with very limited knowledge or experience in app development or information networks, it's been a journey of excitement, doubt and entrepidation. (usually all at the same time!) All of which becomes heightened given the personal investment, both time and financial, that has been poured into our project.

Endless 68hr weeks (we still have our 'real' jobs to deal with) and self funding design / development in the UK have proven to be a challenge that at times seemed all encompassing. Summing up the experience seems like an impossible task for now, especially as it feels like our journey is only really about to begin.

We'd like to thanks everyone who's offered support and encouragement to date, and hope you'll continue to follow the development of our ambitious plans to help everyone travelling by rail in the UK. If you haven't already, you can find links to download the app here.

Bonuses double salaries of rail bosses.

I'm sat on my delayed train home, having waited on the platform at London Bridge at a temperature of -2 degrees, and this was the headline that greeted me and my fellow commuters on this evenings 'Evening Standard'.

Commuters help subsidise Network Rail by £4 billion a year through taxes, along with everyone else who pays their taxes and may never even use a train. It's claimed (by a Network Rail spokesman) that the bonuses are a result of "delivering substantial savings to the taxpayer". Well I don't know about anyone else, but I have seen my taxes reduce as a result of substantial savings. If there have been substantial savings, then surely they won't need another £4 billion next year?

I would suggest that anyone who earns in excess of £500k a year, subsidised by the taxpayer, should be expected to deliver "substantial savings" as part of their basic job description, and not as part of a bonus scheme.

I would suggest that rather than award themselves £2.8 million over the next five years, they keep a hold of it. If they can afford a 500% bonus, then they can afford to have their subsidy slashed, and then we can all share in a little tax bonus.