By Andy McCue, 20 October 2003 18:05
NEWS A mobile tracking system is set to cut passenger waiting times for London buses by stopping the 'bunching' pattern that sees several turning up at once and then a long gap until the next one.
Bus operator Metroline will send text message alerts to its drivers that will allow them to speed up or slow down to maintain more even intervals between buses. A pilot of the system earlier this year on one North London route saw 70 per cent improvements in "excess waiting time" statistics.
GPS satellite technology feeds the location of the buses to a control centre over an Orange network. The control centre then sends the text alert to the driver's dashboard.
The system will be extended to all of Metroline's 1,089 vehicles over a two-year period. The project is costing the firm around £6m and Sean O'Shea, commercial director at Metroline, described it as "probably the biggest IT project we have ever done".
O'Shea said that as well as improving the service for passengers, the technology will be key for Metroline being able to retain its contract with London Buses.
"We operate all services under contract to London Buses, so we can show London Buses we provide an excellent level of service," he said.
O'Shea said the text message alerts to drivers would not result in bus drivers pulling over to read the paper or racing through London streets at high speeds. He said that because the information is real-time it should prevent long gaps building up in the first place.
But where gaps do occur the alerts will allow drivers to use traffic lights by slowing down to make sure they hit red, or stopping at bus stops for a bit longer.
"They shouldn't need to pull over for five minutes," said O'Shea.
There are potential future passenger SMS services that Metroline will be able to launch based on the system. Passengers could receive bus arrival information direct to their handset by texting a short code, while the location-based technology can be added to displays at bus stops.
Comments
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1. Paul Bouzan
Did I read that right?
"But where gaps do occur the alerts will allow drivers to use traffic lights by slowing down to make sure they hit red, or stopping at bus stops for a bit longer."
The traffic chaos in London is already a nightmare, do we really need to have the buses holding things up even more?
2. anonymous
So where large gaps do occur, will the GPS system instruct drivers to speed up to make up the time? i.e. does the sytem work to reduce as well as increase gaps?
3. Richard Percival
Where I live the buses all run to a timetable. That means at the minimum the driver has a printed card on the dashboard saying exactly when he has to leave each stop. This is usually maintained to an accuracy of 5 seconds. There is a digital clock above his head that all passengers can see. Whenever the driver gets ahead of schedule he waits at the stop until the right start time. Headways are between 5 mins and 30 depending on time of day and route. Typically this means it is possible to plan a journey using mixed rail, tram and bus, so there is a national information website with a journey planning tool available. Obviously this means that there are buslanes wherever there is likely rush-hour congestion. Frequently when space is tight private cars are banned or have a diversion or official rat-run. The result is far less congestion and far bigger take-up of public transport. In the cities at main interchange nodes there are more and more information displays saying which route arrives in how many minutes, which encourages further take-up. Eat your heart out.