Chicago implements new bus management technology

Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is implementing a new technology designed to reduce delays and provide a more consistent and reliable bus service. The Bus Transit Management System (BTMS) provides real-time monitoring of bus movements and real-time communications between bus drivers and CTA’s control centre. The system will allow buses to more quickly adapt to changing traffic and street conditions, and help avoid the two biggest challenges facing bus service: bus “bunching” and long waits between buses.
May 13, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
1000 Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is implementing a new technology designed to reduce delays and provide a more consistent and reliable bus service.

The Bus Transit Management System (BTMS) provides real-time monitoring of bus movements and real-time communications between bus drivers and CTA’s control centre. The system will allow buses to more quickly adapt to changing traffic and street conditions, and help avoid the two biggest challenges facing bus service: bus “bunching” and long waits between buses.

Touch-screen terminals on every CTA bus provide improved two-way communication between drivers and CTA’s Communication and Power Control (C/PC), the command centre that monitors all bus and train operations throughout the service region.

The system enables the control centre to better track the location and movement of buses, and quickly convey route or speed changes to operators in order to ensure proper spreading of buses and adherence to schedule when possible. If control centre personnel detect conditions that could lead to a service delay or bus bunching—more than one bus arriving at a stop at or near the same time—they can instruct the driver to adjust the route accordingly.

The control centre can also relay messages to multiple buses about instantaneously.

By later this summer, all of CTA’s approximately 1,800 buses will be equipped with BTMS.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Ertico coordinates big data debate
    November 2, 2016
    David Crawford finds that agreeing a common data standard for auto manufacturers’ onboard sensors, navigation system companies and map makers is proving a complex task.
    Read More
  • Loop detection still has a part in traffic management
    March 2, 2012
    Bob Lees, co-founder of Diamond Consulting Services, on why the loop detector just refuses to go away. The more strident proponents of newer and emergent detection technologies are quick to highlight what they see as the disadvantages, and hence the imminent passing, of the humble inductive loop. The more prosaic will acknowledge that loops continue to have a part to play in traffic management, falling back on the assertion that it is all a question of application. And yet year after year the loop, despite
    Read More
  • MaaS must be seamless and invisible - or forget it
    June 5, 2018
    MaaS experts from around the world converged on ITS International’s MaaS Market Atlanta conference to talk about how MaaS can be implemented in the US. Andrew Bardin Williams had a front row seat. Transportation experts from around the world gathered in the US earlier this month to discuss the future of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and how it could be deployed in the US market. While most attendees at ITS International’s MaaS Market Atlanta conference were familiar with the MaaS concept, the US’s highly
    Read More
  • Trainfo helps out at crossings
    December 7, 2021
    North American rail crossings are blocked nearly two million times per day, resulting in a collision every three hours. Grade separation can prevent traffic delays and collisions but is unaffordable in most situations.
    Read More

Highlighted Content