Editing TOPS (section)

==Recent history==
TOPS has become outdated in recent decades{{When|date=July 2022}}. It is a [[text terminal|text-terminal]], mainframe-driven system; which is regarded as not very user-friendly, and hard to use compared with contemporary computer user-interfaces. In addition, it is written in its own programming language, TOPSTRAN (not strictly speaking a separate language but a set of IBM Assembler macros), and it is increasingly hard to find and train developers to maintain it. The [[Privatisation of British Rail|division of British Rail and privatisation]] has also hurt TOPS, because it was not designed for that purpose; some [[freight operating company|freight operating companies]] do not keep information as up to date as they should.{{fact|date=September 2019}}

Attempts have been made to 'skin' the system with a more user-friendly interface, called TOPS 2000; in addition, there are other parallel systems now, such as [[TRUST]], Genius and the Mobile Consisting Application (since 2024 marketed as part of the Velociti Solutions RailSmart [[software suite]]),<ref name="MCA3SQ">{{cite web|title=Velociti Rail sector solutions|url=https://www.velociti-solutions.com/our-solutions/rail-sector/|website=Velociti Solutions|access-date=8 January 2025}}</ref> but none has yet fully supplanted the TOPS system.