26 May 2005

Real Time Buses a Joke

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The ACT Libs have jumped on the bandwagon and are voicing what everyone knows that the real-time bus timetables are a waste of money according to this ABC story.

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It’s my inability to spell, it should have been redirection. I’m guessing that the GPS was what cost most of the money and that the live timetable is just a cheap additional use of the technology.

That might be useful. Stick to the GPS, forget the live timetable.

Oh, WTF is ricorection?

RG: the ricorection on route is part of the issue (and as they only go every hour a pretty important one if you happen to call just after they have left), the other part is that ACTION can’t tell you when the bus will be past (as they don’t know the route or where the bus is) with this they would be able to. It could even be automated, and say send you an SMS 10 minutes ahead of when the bus will be at your stop.

“I think the main problem is that people callup when they want the bus, not before.”
But the advertising on TV suggests that that’s what you’re supposed to do. The adulterer climbing out his lover’s bathroom window calls for a flexibus. He doesn’t call two hours earlier.

I have never had a problem with a flexibus myself. I think the main problem is that people callup when they want the bus, not before. If you call up at 5 for a bus at 7, bets are it’ll be there perfectly ontime.

*reads up on flexibus*

How will this live timetable change the way a flexibus works? Without it, you get piucked up at 8, with it you still get picked up at eight.

The driver determines his route before he leaves, so why does he need to be redirected? For the two of three people who ring in while he’s out, thus slowing everything up for the people already waiting?

How many buses and drivers can you get for 7 million to run usual rouutes more regularly?

I say again, a complete crock of shit.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart9:54 pm 26 May 05

Yea, they are called flexibus and they don’t flipping work.

RG: They’re called flexibuses, maybe you’ve heard of them.

Dynamically direct buses? What the hell for? They have a route, what direction is needed? What a crock!

Personally, I reckon that the RT bus system is a great idea. If I were catching a bus, I would definitely like to know how long I have to wait in reality, rather than how long the schedule says I have to wait.

However, in the current economic and political climate there are far more important projects which should be funded ahead of it.

For example, the community fire program should have been funded well ahead of the RT bus service.

That said, this government seems hell bent on wasting money on projects of little or no importance. For example the international arboretum. John Stanhope excepted, nobody in this town wants (let alone thinks we NEED) the arboretum, yet an arboretum we shall have. Stanhope is currently off on an overseas junket, wasting yet more taxpayers money on this unwanted project (funny how these junkets always coincide with winter).

The RT bus system is not a bad idea, it’s just another sign of a government which has got its priorities badly out of whack.

Oh well. Canberra: you get the government you voted for.

Except the whole project (from my limited understanding) is about more than just having displays at the bus stop telling you when the next bass is coming. It involves installing GPS on all the buses and systems to report back to base. What this’s mean is that action will know where all their buses are at all times, and be able to dynamicaly direct buses properly (among a heap of other things).

…….. umm, you can have all the timetables in the world, real time or otherwise, doesn’t mean the buses will run on time. Real time knowledge that my bus is late again is cold comfort.

Waste O Money!

I disagree, flexibuses at the moment are a joke. If this is what they need to make it work, then so be it.

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