Electronic information at tram/bus stops

[Hook 10]

You mean the route planning part of it? Obviously the GPS portion just reports a location, whether it's a bus or a tram or a person.

 

Google can already do route planning that involves trains, so I can't imagine that trams would have been too difficult (for google)...

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/53.4159021,-1.5104519/Langsett+-+Primrose+View/@53.4058562,-1.5086387,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x4879788e24bf9257:0x7117a457d53fc18d!2m2!1d-1.48935!2d53.39577!3e3

 

In fact it can already tell you to catch the tram for a particular journey, and highlights it (this journey is all road, but try another one).

 

So I suspect that it could have been very easily integrated.

 

---------- Post added 08-01-2018 at 17:39 ----------

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Netherthorpe+Road/Sheffield/@53.3826,-1.4631448,18.12z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x487978817b46c331:0x20d41507ab7a227b!2m2!1d-1.48252!2d53.38474!1m5!1m1!1s0x4879829cc4a728d1:0x667bbc10736b8bf6!2m2!1d-1.46211!2d53.37823!3e3

 

That includes the off road section to the train station.

 

Sorry I meant specifically the software that works with the PIDS. I believe all Uk tram systems use the loop based system for the PIDS as this is also how they track the location of all the vehicles.

 

To switch to a GPS system would require a much bigger upgrade than just fitting a GPS system to each tram and would be prohibitively expensive.

[pushtotalk 10]

Buses use GPS which is provided by the ticket machines. (The fact these are powered from the bus battery also means Stagecoach buses can do contactless and Apple Pay etc. Slightly off topic but tram would offer contactless/Apple Pay if there was a mobile based device that could last a full day without the battery failing).

 

Trams of course don’t have the same ticket machines but they do use GPS data - it comes from another (existing) device on the tram and is sent back to the server via the radio. Trams also use ‘loop’ data as well.

[Hook 10]

Buses use GPS which is provided by the ticket machines. (The fact these are powered from the bus battery also means Stagecoach buses can do contactless and Apple Pay etc. Slightly off topic but tram would offer contactless/Apple Pay if there was a mobile based device that could last a full day without the battery failing).

 

Trams of course don’t have the same ticket machines but they do use GPS data - it comes from another (existing) device on the tram and is sent back to the server via the radio. Trams also use ‘loop’ data as well.

 

I stand corrected!

 

Is the GPS data used in the PIDs system?

[SHFS6 10]

I don't see why the displays can't be hooked up to the Twitter feed in the interim whilst they attempt to sort the system out.

 

It would mean if there was going to be extensive delays - road accidents etc, that everyone city wide who was waiting would know and where necessary could make alternative arrangements.

[Cyclone 10]

I don't see why the displays can't be hooked up to the Twitter feed in the interim whilst they attempt to sort the system out.

 

It would mean if there was going to be extensive delays - road accidents etc, that everyone city wide who was waiting would know and where necessary could make alternative arrangements.

 

"Hooking up" is software development, and we don't work for free.

[northernboy 13]

Ironically the live bus tracking was broken for most of yesterday (it's just started working again)

[pushtotalk 10]

I stand corrected!

 

Is the GPS data used in the PIDs system?

 

Yes, most PID data is via GPS and supplememted by loops, then it’s all fed into the system, sent out to the PID system and then sent to the hardware on the street. There aren’t enough loops to provide sufficient location data for PIDS - if there was the PIDS would probably actually work!

[Cyclone 10]

So if the system really is using GPS, why is it so terribly inaccurate? To the point of trams apparently disappearing, how does a tram that's 10, then 5 minutes away, suddenly just disappear?

[BigAl1 143]

I notice that Supertram have placed posters at the tramstops explaining to customers how to use the tram - now quite why they have decided to do this is beyond me but in these instructions they make no mention that customers should not use the dot matrix to find out when the next tram is due which might have been the most valuable advise

[apelike 10]

Noticed today that the dot matrix signs are off, at lease now the passengers cant tell if the trams are late or have gone past early.

[BigAl1 143]

You never know they might be doing that development work they have been saying they g=have been doing for the last 30 months - then again.................

[dutch 68]

They should rip the whole thing out and get one that does work. If you cant sort it in 30 months its mental.

If I had a car that needed a new part to work again for 30 months on the road I be nothing but an idiot.

I'm sorry to say it the way I do but the problem with these signs keeps going on and on and on.