Cubic to expand University of Maryland NextBus system

Cubic Transportation Systems has been awarded a US$1.1 million, five-year contract extension from the University of Maryland (UMD) to upgrade its bus fleet management system, which currently features approximately 80 buses. They all have NextBus hardware capabilities, including GPS-based trackers, driver control units and automatic vehicle location to inform passengers of the place and time of bus arrivals. Under the contract extension, Cubic will enhance UMD’s smart bus offering by providing features su
February 2, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
378 Cubic Transportation Systems has been awarded a US$1.1 million, five-year contract extension from the University of Maryland (UMD) to upgrade its bus fleet management system, which currently features approximately 80 buses. They all have NextBus hardware capabilities, including GPS-based trackers, driver control units and automatic vehicle location to inform passengers of the place and time of bus arrivals.

Under the contract extension, Cubic will enhance UMD’s smart bus offering by providing features such as automatic passenger counting, automatic voice announcement and turn-by-turn directions. The new technology will allow UMD’s transit staff to track passenger use in real time, through the use of automatic passenger counters, which enables the customer to gather data crucial for optimising operations and improving services.

NextBus’ automatic voice announcement system will use the vehicle’s public address system and onboard light-emitting diodes signs to announce upcoming stops, transfer points and custom messages from UMD’s transit staff. The turn-by-turn direction feature will act as the transit operators’ personal guide to help navigate UMD’s multiple shuttle routes and assist in the training process of new and prospective bus operators. The installation of this new system is expected to begin in February 2017.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Integration of travel payment and information closer to reality
    January 7, 2013
    Integration of travel payment and information is bringing utopia in management of transportation as a single intermodal system is closer to reality. Larry Yermack writes. For decades, transportation planners and ITS visionaries all believed that transportation would not be fully optimised until it could be managed as a single intermodal system. Relationships between modal operators left this more in the dream category than reality. However, the steady march of advances in payment technology have brought us
    Read More
  • Tunnel simulators vital for real world tunnel management
    January 23, 2012
    Guillaume Ponsar, tunnel safety engineer with Egis Road Operation, writes about the advantages to be gained from the use of tunnel simulators. Major tunnel disasters over the last decade and more have shown how swiftly and badly a simple crash or fire may evolve should the wrong actions be taken by control room operators or traffic managers. Global safety issues and the reactions of operations staff have now become the principal concerns for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) service providers. As a result, n
    Read More
  • Managed lane operators: meet the CAV pioneers
    June 26, 2018
    There is some controversy over the testing of connected and autonomous vehicles – but Robert Deans of Transurban North America explains how managed lanes could be vital in the development of CAVs, benefiting everyone. Managed lane operators have the opportunity to establish themselves as leaders in the testing and roll-out of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), assisting and accelerating the transition of CAVs onto road networks to deliver economic and safety benefits. Managed lane facilities
    Read More
  • Your life in their hands
    March 27, 2018
    Rail, bus and taxi operators are realising significant savings by switching to ride scheduling, booking and monitoring apps that help them greatly automate their operations - while simultaneously offering their smartphone-wielding passengers the information they crave. Indeed, most of today’s transportation apps offer customers instant access to your system via mobile phone, where they can book and pay for a ride, get real-time status on their train, bus, or taxi - greatly reducing the overhead you normally
    Read More

Highlighted Content