Real-Time Passenger Information supplement

• The use of real-time information to enhance the customer experience
  We live in the information age where the use of technology to enhance the customer’s experience is now taken for granted, particularly by the under 30s, who are a key age group the bus industry must attract and retain for future growth. They are children of an age where technology is an integral part of life; we must therefore focus on providing them with the most immediate information, whilst also ensuring the bus product meets their high expectations. The ability to know exactly when their bus will arrive is now taken for granted and they have little tolerance for a bus that fails to show. We must embrace the use of real-time information in all its aspects to satisfy these requirements. For Intelligent Transport, Peter Heath – Operations and Commercial Director of Cardiff Bus – outlines how the operator uses real-time information to enhance the customer experience for bus passengers in Cardiff, the Capital city of Wales.
• Sustaining and evolving RTPI outside city environments
  Throughout Europe, customers increasingly expect to have access, as a minimum, to live arrival information for their local bus, as well as train, services, with this information being available via a variety of media. Meeting this expectation can pose a particular challenge in areas with smaller urban populations and significant rural hinterlands, where the business case for investing in and crucially sustaining Real-Time Passenger Information (RTPI) may not be as strong, when compared with city environments. In this feature, Clive Tombs – Public Transport Officer at West Berkshire Council (UK) – outlines the approach taken locally to establishing and developing lasting partnerships and applying available capital and revenue funding, to implement and sustain scalable telematics solutions in a diverse urban and rural District.
• The multi-channel information system for passengers
  All traveller information aims to be reliable and as comprehensive as possible. This is the sole responsibility of the authority that organises and operates a transport network. Involving as many partners as possible in the dissemination of this information allows it to be made accessible to as many people as possible, and offers a much larger number of personalisation options than if it were being operated by a single entity. In order to make this strategy sustainable, the associated economic model has to follow this viability and the legal framework has to stay unequivocal. For Intelligent Transport, Alain Caffart – Information Systems Manager at the Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois (CTS) – the company responsible for the comprehensive public transport network of the urban community of Strasbourg (France) – explains that, like many networks, they have greatly strengthened the IT resources dedicated to the management of its network.