By Nick Heath, 26 May 2009 16:02
When it opened 30 years ago, staff in London Buses' emergency control centre CentreComm relied on a radio and pen and paper to do their job.
There were just two operators, who wrote down bus movements as they were radioed in by drivers - the control panel and handset for the Band II radio system can be seen in this shot of CentreComm from the early 1980s.
The nickname for the Band II system was "steam radio" - it allowed multiple drivers to call in at once, meaning operators had to ask drivers to stand by at busy times to stop them from calling in over the top of each other.
The band 2 radio did not have selective calling so during busy periods you would have to continually ask drivers to stand by as they would all be calling in over the top of each other. The nick name for band 2 was steam radio.Today the centre is manned by 45 people and relies on GPS tracking to manage billions of bus journeys across the capital each year.
Thursday was the 30th anniversary of CentreComm's lauch and Transport for London has released these pictures charting its evolution.
Photo credit: Transport for London
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. GALLEYSLAVE
Yes I-BUS works just fine for knowing just where a bus is and if its on time ETC and ALL passengers are subject to CCTV recording.
But it still takes an age for the police to attend an incident.
2. GALLEYSLAVE
MIGHT BE BETTER IF BUS DRIVERS WHERE ALLOWED TO CONCENTRATE ON DRIVING.....AND NOT HAVE THESE HI-TECH TOYS IN THE CAB TO PLAY WITH.
3. Michael O
One thing that hasn't changed: The short-sleeved white dress shirt. If they did away with that, the whole system would crash.