Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Tracking busses

Finally, some good news for public transport users in Ireland. Bus Eireann has announced that they are going to roll out GPS tracking across its fleet to allow users to track busses and know how long it will be before they arrive at a particular stop.

The Irish Independent (reg required) tells us
Passengers waiting at stops will know exactly where the bus is and how long it will take to reach their stop.

Those already on the bus will know the time and distance to their destination.
and
Using mobile communications, this information is transferred to a central computer which distributes it to the website, to mobile phones and to electronic display signs at bus stations.


[via ElectricNews.net]

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:35 AM

    Supposedly there was a radio system that was ready to be in place thirty years ago, which would have enabled all Dublin Buses to be monitored as they travelled around the city. It was based on a number of clicks (wheel revulsions) the bus would make, which would be picked up by a radio trasmitting system and then be radioed to HQ. It would take a number of clicks for the bus to reach certain points along the road, so bus 16 with 50 click would (if on route) be at point x and with 70 clicks at point z. Unsuprisingly the CIE unions went mental and the thing was scuppered. From talking to an Engineer on the project, they were wary of removing the radios as the Bus Drivers would piss or do worse on them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. -Ann6:27 AM

    I heard about this program and while it sounds like a fantastic idea, I am skeptical that it will actually make it through to implementation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Declan9:52 AM

    Yeah, I guess the drivers would freak. I know one driver on my bus route who used to stop, let passangers on and then go into a hair dressers for 5 minutes.

    ReplyDelete

I allow people to comment anonymously, many blogs dont. If you want to express an opinion and throw insults my way but are afraid to back up your statements with an ID at least back up your opinions and insults with a logical argument.

Unfortunately due to spammers and people posting libel comments I've turned on moderation and just deleted the spam comments.