Skip to main content

Low public transport usage solved by BusPlus journey planner

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.
July 31, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
NICTA researcher Dr Phil Kilby has developed a system for new off-peak public transport in Canberra
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.

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.

Related Content

  • June 29, 2022
    How public transit improves quality of life
    There are various reasons why Mobility as a Service is catching on more in Europe than the US – but there are still other ways in which access to mobility can be improved across the states, finds Gordon Feller
  • June 13, 2017
    Transport integration separates rural idyll from remote isolation
    David Crawford investigates the operation of Total Transport in some of Europe’s more rural areas. Total Transport is a concept that is gaining traction in Europe as a means of making it easier for people without access to a car and living in rural and remote communities, to travel to work, the shops, schools and hospitals. It involves maximising vehicle availability and integrating scheduled services with other transport services (including taxis) commissioned or contracted by more than one local governmen
  • August 8, 2017
    Considering accessibility costs little and pays dividends for all travellers
    Catering for those with disabilities can be cost-effective and improve services for all travellers, as David Crawford discovers. Clearer understanding of the economic value of accessible transport is essential if we are to speed up the current slow deployment levels, according to the Paris-based International Transport Forum (ITF), which staged a 2016 round table on the ‘Benefits and Costs of Inclusion in Transport’. It wants to see greater availability of data on levels of actual and unmet demand for acces
  • June 4, 2015
    Greenowl brings bespoke traveller information one step closer
    Greenowl’s voice-only congestion warning smartphone app alerts drivers to problems ahead and could be the way ahead for traffic information. If there is one point Matt Man, CEO of Canadian company Greenowl, wants to make clear from the start, it is that his company’s app is not a navigation system. He says: “Our system does not direct drivers to their destination because we mainly focus on commuters who know how to get to where they are going and only need information about any delays and incidents ahead of