Skip to main content

Delivering London’s live bus arrival information

Launched in October 2011, Transport for London’s Countdown real time bus information service has proven extremely popular. The latest research shows that around 830,000 bus journeys made in London each day are informed by live bus arrival information. Building on this success, TfL has developed a new way of delivering live bus arrival information to a range of public locations, such as hospital waiting rooms or shopping centre foyers. This means that real time bus arrival information can be provided to pa
April 17, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Launched in October 2011, 1466 Transport for London’s Countdown real time bus information service has proven extremely popular.  The latest research shows that around 830,000 bus journeys made in London each day are informed by live bus arrival information.    

Building on this success, TfL has developed a new way of delivering live bus arrival information to a range of public locations, such as hospital waiting rooms or shopping centre foyers.  This means that real time bus arrival information can be provided to passengers who may not have access to the internet, a mobile or smart phone or a bus stop with a Countdown dot matrix sign.

The technology is delivered at the request of a business or organisation, using their existing IT equipment and displayed on their display screens or televisions.  Designed to be self installed, TfL will supply bus arrival information tailored to their specific location via a special URL.

These digital signs are currently being trialled at four areas of the capital and, as
Simon Reed, Head of Technical Services Group at London Buses, said: “The trial of these new digital signs is a further example of how we are helping our passengers make the most of London’s extensive bus service.  We hope that these new signs will help passengers to access real time bus arrival information, in some cases for the first time, at a variety of locations away from the bus stop.”

Customer research will be conducted to evaluate how well the signs have been used and to refine the service provided.  In the future it is possible that the information could be displayed at a variety of customer focused locations.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Slow adoption of European VMS harmonisation
    January 31, 2012
    Alberto Arbaiza, ES4-Mare Nostrum Chair, Directorate General of Traffic, Spain and Antonio Lucas-Alba, ES4 Secretariat, INTRAS, University of Valencia, Spain write about progress towards variable message sign harmonisation in Europe . Particularly in Europe, national road administrations have been faster at generating and adopting new road signs than the standardisation process has been at generating them.
  • Up to 120 London underground stations to get free wi-fi this year
    March 22, 2012
    Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has confirmed that a contract has been awarded to Virgin Media to provide public access wi-fi at up to 120 underground station platforms at zero cost to the fare or taxpayer. The new service will launch as a free, unlimited service for all tube passengers this summer and will continue to offer free live Transport for London (TfL) travel information via a new online portal after this period. Virgin Media, in partnership with London Underground, will initially introduce wi-
  • Sensor-based car parking, foldable container honoured at IRF awards
    May 19, 2014
    Xerox and Holland Container Innovations (HCI) are the joint winners of the 2014 Promising Innovation in Transport Award, awarded by the International Transport Forum at the OECD, an intergovernmental organisation for the transport sector with 54 member countries. Xerox receives the award for its Merge system, a city-wide sensor-based, smart parking solution that reduces traffic and congestion through guided parking with demand-based pricing. HCI receives the award for their 4FOLD ISO-certified foldabl
  • TfL upgrades transport planning tool
    January 19, 2017
    Transport for London (TfL) has upgraded WebCAT, its online planning tool for showing how well-connected a location is in terms of transport. It includes a range of new data to help the city’s planners design the housing and business developments of the future. As well as previously released information such as the levels of public transport by location and journey time, the latest version of WebCAT now includes heat maps which show users how well-connected an area is, not only by public transport but no