Navigating The Urban Jungle

A modern real-time passenger information system can pay dividends for operators and their customers, as Richard Simpson explains

Back in the dark ages before the internet, someone who had to use buses to find their way across a strange city had to prepare themselves for an experience akin to that of an explorer trying to negotiate an uncharted jungle.

You could see various routes, going off in different directions, but knowing which ones were the best to use was always a complex issue. There were various clues: [wlm_nonmember][…]

[/wlm_nonmember][wlm_ismember]numbers on bus-stop flags, which may or may not have related to the numbers displayed on the buses which actually appeared at the various stops, and then the, sometimes cryptic, route destination which appeared on the bus’ destination blind, of which my personal favourite was ‘Halfway’ which was on the 120 route in Sheffield.

Then there was, (if you were lucky) a paper timetable, usually concealed behind a scratched and dirty plastic screen, with sometimes irrelevant or out-of-date information. What there almost certainly wouldn’t be was any kind of a route map or schematic diagram, even though Harry Back’s original London Underground map of the 1930s proved that complex geographic information could easily be relayed to the public in an easily assimilated form by using the principle of the wiring diagram: showing where components were and what connected them in relation to each other rather than their physical location in the real world.

Faced with such a dilemma both the jungle traveller and the bus passenger would be likely to resort to the same solution: ask a tribal elder. In the case of the bus passenger, this would be likely to be an old lady waiting for the clock to go around to 0930hrs so she could use her concessionary travel pass.

Modern technology

The arrival of new technologies, including global positioning satellites, smartphones and, of course, the good old internet itself has served first to allow the use of real-time information screens on terminals and bus stop flags, and more recently to put live information directly into the hands of potential service users via smartphones and other mobile devices.

But the use of electronics to locate buses dates back to the 1960s, when London Transport’s Bus Electronic Scanning Indicator (BESI) system was trialled. Beacons and cameras fitted to key bus stops along the route scanned what were in effect primitive bar codes on the sides of each bus and relayed its identity and location to LT controllers in the organisation’s headquarters at 55 Broadway.

The BESI technology looks like something from the then contemporary Thunderbirds sci-fi puppets show, and you can see an explanation of the system by London Transport Museum’s inimitable Barry Le Jeune at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGwZwe6izTg.

However, the data generated by this system was not accessible by the public: it was merely used by LT controllers to maintain an overall picture of running on particular routes. They could then relay instructions to inspectors on the ground to take action to maintain service headways in changing traffic conditions.

Systems developed and introduced in the past 20 years or so have built up from very basic monitoring of buses in service as they pass key waypoints (GPS, rather than the ‘pregnant bus stops’ used by BESI) to fully-integrated networks that can not only gather live information from vehicles but also process it to predict future delays. This information can be used by controllers to pre-empt problems as well as be shared with the public not just via “next bus in X minutes’ signs at bus stops but also by mobile devices via the internet.

It’s arguable that their use has become even more important in what used to be called the bus station than it is on the open road.

Transport hubs, to use the modern parlance, generally have to accommodate more services in smaller facilities than ever before. A vehicle arriving late in the transport hub may well be unable to get onto its usual platform because the next bus is already loading there. A flexible passenger information system can easily take such problems in its stride, ensuring that passengers are directed to the new loading location with a minimum of disruption.

These systems are particularly valuable in winning new customers for networks. Someone attempting to use a public transport system for the first time and failing because of poor information provision is unlikely to return, and they are likely to share their experience with others who may be similarly deterred.

London and Oxford

In the UK, London led the way with ‘live’ passenger information: the Countdown system with live information on bus stop flags was introduced in the early 1990s, and was then much expanded and upgraded with the launch of Congestion Charging for vehicles in 2005. Siemens won a contract worth £120 million to supply and manage a system which now covers 2,500 bus stops in the capital. If there’s no live information sign, each stop’s flag bears a number which if sent via text to a dedicated Transport for London (TfL) number generates a reply with real-time information for that stop.

Potential passengers can also access information from the systems before they even leave home, as times for each route can be checked via the internet. TfL will also supply digital signs, which display information for up to four bus stops on screens, to premises such as schools, hospitals, retail outlets and hotels.

Research shows that passenger perception of the length of waiting times is reduced by plentiful and accurate information…in layman’s terms someone might feel they got to a stop and “waited ages for a bus,” simply because they did not know how long they actually waited. Arriving at a stop to see ‘Next 5 mins’ immediately reduces the perception of time wasted waiting, and improves business retention.

Systems have evolved to match improvements in mobile technology generally, and something of a step-change came in Switzerland in 2007, when Siemens VDO installed a system in Greater Zurich which provided train passengers with bus departure times from stops near each railway station, and bus passengers with details of forthcoming departures of local and national trains from stations nearest to the next bus stop. Information about the whole of an entire, multi-modal, journey could be accessed by the potential passenger via the internet or handheld devices.
In the event of significant delays (supposedly almost unheard of in Switzerland) the system would also produce suggested alternative journeys.

Operating such systems in heavily-regulated environments such as Zurich and London is one thing: introducing them to cities where there is competition between operators is another.

Oxford is one such city.

ACIS was chosen to supply a real-time information (RTI) system to Oxford as early as 2004. By 2008, the system covered 254 buses run by Stagecoach, Oxford Bus Co, and Thames Travel. Vehicles are tracked by satellite using automatic vehicle location technology, with information relayed to the bus operators and Oxfordshire County Council via the ACIS server in London, and direct communications with the vehicles themselves is handled by a private mobile radio network.

Funding costs were shared between the rival bus operators and the local authority.

Information is relayed to passengers via real-time displays at stops and termini, plus a dedicated website and an SMS (text) service for mobile phones. As early as 2008, the website and the text system were each being used about 50,000 times a year, with uptake being particularly high among Oxford’s tech-savvy student population.

Poole

While bus travel is in long-term decline in most parts of the country, including, worryingly, London in the last year, the indications are that the introduction of a RTPI system can help to stem the losses and even reverse the trend.
Unusually, for an English provincial town, Poole in Dorset has seen the number of bus passenger journeys almost double from 5.3 million in 2004-5 to 10.2 million in 2014-15.

Admittedly Poole has a growing population (up by nearly 7% per decade), but it is also a prosperous area (property prices on the town’s Sandbanks peninsular are such that the Daily Mail has described it as a ‘Millionaire’s playground’) with a higher ratio of cars per household than most places in the UK.

So, not exactly the best potential area to operate buses.

However, increasing urban sprawl and the resultant traffic congestion – particularly in the holiday season – served as the impetus for a Quality Bus Partnership, which was founded in 1999. Crucially, it included not just the area’s three leading bus operators: Morebus, Yellow Buses and First; but also three neighbouring local authorities: Poole, Dorset and Bournemouth.

The local authorities were required to invest in infrastructure, including not just real-time passenger information, but also bus shelters and bus priority measures, while the bus companies themselves invested in modern vehicles running at higher frequencies, including a daytime rate of 24 buses per hour on the main Poole – Bournemouth corridor.

In 2001, Poole won Department for Transport seed funding for the passenger information system, with the contract going to Action Information Management (now Trapeze).

Initially, the system was PMR-based, with two radio masts proving coverage over the operational area, and soon expanded to cover 259 buses and 198 bus stops, with additional information screens being placed in hospitals, retail outlets, universities and leisure centres.

Further new ground for bus operations in the south-west was broken in 2007 with the installation of real-time information for mobile phones via text, and 30,000 inquiries were fielded by the system in its first year
of running.

Emboldened by this success, Poole was the first town in England to install near-field communications (NFC) tags on its bus stops.

These devices have the potential to revolutionise bus travel for a new generation of passengers as they have the ability to communicate information over a very short range (typically 100mm) to enabled devices such as smartphones. Passengers were able to use these to access ‘next bus’ information at any stop so equipped, irrespective of whether a conventional screen was in place or not.

Aside from the direct benefit to passengers planning or undertaking journeys, the vast amount of real-time information harvested by the Poole system has enabled bus controllers to mitigate problems in the short-term by maintaining headways in the face of congestion, and in the long-term by identifying and quantifying disruptive hotspots on the bus routes, and justifying the investment needed to mitigate them.

For example, a revision to bus routes around Poole Civic Centre has saved four minutes off the Bournemouth – Poole journey which is an obvious benefit to passengers. Slightly less obviously, it has saved bus operators 18,000 bus miles per annum, which equates to 3,000 gallons of diesel, and a commensurate reduction in exhaust emissions.
Building on this success, in 2012 the participating local authorities won Local Sustainable Transport funding and Better Bus Area funding grants worth £12.1million and £33.4 million respectively.

This money was spent firstly on improved real-time information, which included on-bus next-stop information displays and audio announcements and traffic signal priority for buses, together with improved bus shelters and on-route display screens. Advertising revenue from the bus shelters has been ring-fenced for maintaining the shelters and display screens into the future.

A local survey of 800 residents ranked real-time information provision as the third most important factor in winning more people over to buses (the two higher factors were, predictably, cheaper fares and more frequent services).

Trials and insight

Back in London, TfL has recently started trials of a stand-alone battery-powered real-time information display screen at Northwood Station. Developed in partnership with Axentia Technologies of Sweden, the signs can be deployed as part of a conventional bus stop flag at bus stops where there is no shelter or electrical supply. While the first one in the UK is situated in London, they have an obvious application on rural routes where the necessary utility infrastructure may not be present.

The midlands city of Nottingham is, socially and economically, a long way away from the fast-growing Poole and Bournemouth conurbation. However, Nottingham City Transport has embraced the concept of real-time passenger information with enthusiasm.

It has been working with Bournemouth-based design and technology company Base since 2013 on a variety of products, including a new dedicated mobile app: Passenger; that combines passenger information with ticketing.
This provides the transport operator with real insight into where and when people travel: particularly important when people work in a ‘gig’ economy with flexible or zero-hours contracts predominating. One feature product is a mobile-exclusive five-day ticket which will appeal particularly to those working irregular hours.

It is a given fact that passenger transport is no longer the predictable business it once was. The days when bus companies had to take into account the daily peaks caused by such predictable events as the day-shift of thousands of workers clocking off at the Raleigh bicycle factory are long gone. Instead, peaks and troughs can be generated by seemingly far more random events as we move increasingly to 24-hour cities with, when it comes to travel, less distinction than ever between work, recreation and the mundane journeys of day-to-day living.[/wlm_ismember]