NICTA shows BusPlus off-peak public transport solution

BusPlus, a ‘hub and spoke’ off-peak public transport option designed by National ICT Australia (NICTA) will be featured at the 2015 ITS World Congress. NICTA claims this service is particularly beneficial during off-peak times, when public transport is frequently inefficient, poorly utilised and expensive to deliver.
October 6, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

BusPlus, a ‘hub and spoke’ off-peak public transport option designed by 8237 National ICT Australia (NICTA) will be featured at the 2015 ITS World Congress. NICTA claims this service is particularly beneficial during off-peak times, when public transport is frequently inefficient, poorly utilised and expensive to deliver.

The solution came from solving low public transport utilisation in Canberra, by introducing a hub and spoke model to the problem. Hubs are linked by buses, which run frequently (typically every 15 minutes) to facilitate public transport. Passengers are connected to these hubs by taxis, which will bring them to their nearest bus stop by simply booking a trip online, by phone or by downloading the app – and only 15 minutes before they need to go.

According to Dr Phil Kilby, the beauty of this solution is that the BusPlus system plans the whole route including pickup at a user’s local stop, bus travel, and a taxi waiting at the other end to complete the journey. Passengers may share taxis (up to three passengers per taxi), and when necessary, minibuses can also be used as shuttles.

Other notable NICTA projects on show in Bordeaux include TrafficWatch, a real-time traffic incident detection and monitoring system using social media, as well as NICTA’s ground-breaking research on CBD hotspot prediction, roads performance estimation and smart motorways.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Ertico prepares for World Congress 2015
    December 15, 2014
    Hot on the heels of the 21st ITS World Congress in Detroit, Ertico - ITS Europe is already writing session proposals, contacting speakers and putting together the demonstration programme for the 2015 ITS World Congress. This will take place from 5-9 October in the French city of Bordeaux, one of the most advanced cities in Europe in terms of ITS adoption, and will have the theme of ‘Towards intelligent mobility – Better use of space’.
    Read More
  • Logging on to public transport
    November 15, 2012
    Cape Town’s public transport commuters can now use their cell phones to access real-time timetables and plan their routes, whether they are travelling by train, taxi, MyCiTi buses or the city’s Golden Arrow Bus service. FindMyWay is a free public service website that brings together all the modes of transport within the city, so that commuters can easily access the information in one place. Logging on to www.findmyway.mobi and www.gometro.co.za from a cell phone with an internet connection gives commuters
    Read More
  • New York pioneers online mobile real-time bus tracking
    May 22, 2012
    An unusual technology collaboration. David Crawford investigates Early in January 2012, the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) rolled out the first borough-wide implementation of its pioneering Bus Time online mobile real-time tracking service. The system allow commuters to track each bus on every route in real-time on the internet, via smartphones and by text messaging to a mobile phone. The MTA chose Staten Island for its first live launch due to it being the only one of the five Ne
    Read More
  • Single system simplicity for smarter city transport
    February 23, 2017
    All encompassing, city-wide transport monitoring and control systems are beginning to make their way onto the market, as Colin Sowman hears. The futuristic vision of cities where everything is connected and operated with maximum efficiency by a gigantic computer remains a distant prospect but related sectors and services are beginning to coalesce: transport monitoring and control for instance.
    Read More

Highlighted Content