01129450

Component

The provision of bus real time information (RTI) to passengers is an important way to encourage increased use of public transit. Existing techniques of disseminating bus RTI require that the passenger be either at the bus-stop, have an internet connection, or pay a premium to receive information via mobile phone. This paper proposes a new approach to the dissemination of bus RTI – that of broadcasting this information via digital radio or TV. A bandwidth-efficient data model is defined. In addition a broadcasting strategy is proposed which would allow devices to be turned on by the passenger and within a minute receive departures of imminent buses. This strategy would also enable passengers to track the progress of their journey whilst on board the vehicle. A simulation exercise using real network and schedule data from London Buses is performed. It was estimated that approximately 35.2 Kbit/second of bandwidth would be required to disseminate real time stop-centric and vehicle-centric information during the morning peak in London when 7,323 buses are providing a service at 18,984 bus stops on 624 bus routes. This paper thus suggests that the broadcasting of RTI is a feasible approach to disseminate bus RTI in a mega-city.

01120148

09-0899

English

18p

2009

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (1) ; References (16) ; Tables (9)

Bus transit; Bus transit operations; Cellular telephones; Information dissemination; Internet; Mobile telephones; Passenger information systems; Passengers; Peak hour traffic; Public transit; Real time information; Schedules and scheduling; Simulation; Traffic delays

London (England)

Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-0899

TRIS, TRB

Jan 30 2009 5:08PM