Technology
The future of bus transport was looking pretty bleak a few decades ago. The buses were ageing, they were noisy and smelly and in terms of city route buses they provided the minimum standards of comfort as well as lacking convenience in many cases. Today however we stand on the cusp of some of the biggest shifts in bus technology the industry has ever witnessed, from the way buses are powered, to how we use them, how they are controlled and even how big they can be. C&B takes a look at where the bus industry is headed.
B
uses haven’t really changed the way they have operated
since the early 1900’s, however now due to technology, transit authorities and operators are faced with the opportunity to create a new and agile experience for the bus industry.
With technology, conditions are perfectly poised for a more agile and efficient approach to running buses.
While trunk route buses may get bigger, with larger passenger capacity, many buses in the future will be smaller, more agile and efficient, while importantly, they will be
there when you need them—just-in-time, not just-in-case.
On-Demand Bus technology is yielding
016 www.truckandbus.net.au
benefits to passengers, operators and public transport authorities with increased efficiency, lower cost of operations and expanded service coverage. All of which,
is providing us with a technology-enabled sustainable pathway for the future of buses. Public buses have been a constant in the transport landscape for decades. Most bus
In the age before mobile phones and
instant communications, this approach was entirely necessary and was the only practical option. Effectively, the just-in-case model has instilled the idea that bus services should aspire to rigid predictability. As
long as the bus is running to its timetable, passengers are getting a good service.
services today operate the same way they did in the early 1900s. They run on fixed
However, research shows that the justin-case model is a highly inefficient way to
services has and remains generally, we will
In the USA the National Transit Database, found in 2016 that the average urban
timetables and fixed routes—essentially functioning on a principle of ‘just-in-case’. The operating proposition for most bus operate on a specific route at a specific timetabled route, so long as it is on time and it is there just in case you need it.
run a bus network. The following statistics illustrate the extent of the problem:
transit or route bus had 39 seats but carried an average of just 11 people. That number may be different in Australia but
