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TfL's iBus program -- a dud?
Interesting news from Vancouver, BC, given that Siemens is also responsible for
supplying the infrastructure for London's iBus system. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col.../bc-signs.html Vancouver bus info signs 'duds' TransLink admits the electronic information signs at stops along a major bus route between downtown Vancouver and Richmond don't work, can't be fixed and could soon be gone. The digital signs along the 98 B-line between downtown Vancouver and Richmond are supposed to let people waiting at the bus stop know when the next bus will arrive. The signs, which are linked to a GPS system on the buses, haven't been working for the past week, freezing up and requiring frequent reboots. "The signs at the bus stops have been duds," said TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie, adding the company that installed the system said it cannot be fixed. "This system unfortunately just has never worked properly. Siemens has basically thrown up its hands and say they can't make it work." |
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TfL's iBus program -- a dud?
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:44:51 +0000, Marc Brett
wrote: Interesting news from Vancouver, BC, given that Siemens is also responsible for supplying the infrastructure for London's iBus system. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col.../bc-signs.html Vancouver bus info signs 'duds' TransLink admits the electronic information signs at stops along a major bus route between downtown Vancouver and Richmond don't work, can't be fixed and could soon be gone. The digital signs along the 98 B-line between downtown Vancouver and Richmond are supposed to let people waiting at the bus stop know when the next bus will arrive. The signs, which are linked to a GPS system on the buses, haven't been working for the past week, freezing up and requiring frequent reboots. "The signs at the bus stops have been duds," said TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie, adding the company that installed the system said it cannot be fixed. "This system unfortunately just has never worked properly. Siemens has basically thrown up its hands and say they can't make it work." Is it the same system as London's? I understand Siemens have a fully working GPS based bus info system in Cologne - there may be others. Is there any further explanation as to why the Vancouver installation is irretrievably broken? -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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TfL's iBus program -- a dud?
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 21:57:10 +0000, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:44:51 +0000, Marc Brett wrote: Interesting news from Vancouver, BC, given that Siemens is also responsible for supplying the infrastructure for London's iBus system. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col.../bc-signs.html Vancouver bus info signs 'duds' TransLink admits the electronic information signs at stops along a major bus route between downtown Vancouver and Richmond don't work, can't be fixed and could soon be gone. Is it the same system as London's? I understand Siemens have a fully working GPS based bus info system in Cologne - there may be others. Is there any further explanation as to why the Vancouver installation is irretrievably broken? Another slant on the story here. It's only the signs which are malfunctioning; the rest of the system seems fine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.vancourier.com/issues07/0...033107nn3.html But the transmitters communicating the locations of buses to the digital signs hasn't worked well. The communications system was purchased from Siemens, a major German technology company. "One of the issues that we've had is that the receivers have a hard time picking up signals from the buses," Snider said. "There's a lot of radio frequency interference out there and Siemens tried everything from hardware, software, firmware-which, I gather is somewhere in between-and after a period of time they basically abandoned it. They said we can't fix this thing." Coast Mountain Bus Company, which runs day-to-day operations, relies on bus drivers, passengers and transit supervisors to report when one of the approximately 40 digital signs isn't working so staff can reboot it. "That is one of the weaknesses in the system, that it's not two-way. It won't tell us automatically when it's not working properly," Snider said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the report, it looks like a transmit-only dedicated radio system supplied by Siemens. Are the buses actually sending the signals?!?! In contrast, the TfL web site diagram of iBus indicates that the Countdown displays will communicate with the Central System via GPRS or ISDN. Best quote from the article, though, must be this: "We're quite convinced that the new system will work. Not just work better, but work," Snider said. |
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TfL's iBus program -- a dud?
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:40:27 +0000, Marc Brett
wrote: Another slant on the story here. It's only the signs which are malfunctioning; the rest of the system seems fine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.vancourier.com/issues07/0...033107nn3.html But the transmitters communicating the locations of buses to the digital signs hasn't worked well. The communications system was purchased from Siemens, a major German technology company. "One of the issues that we've had is that the receivers have a hard time picking up signals from the buses," Snider said. "There's a lot of radio frequency interference out there and Siemens tried everything from hardware, software, firmware-which, I gather is somewhere in between-and after a period of time they basically abandoned it. They said we can't fix this thing." Coast Mountain Bus Company, which runs day-to-day operations, relies on bus drivers, passengers and transit supervisors to report when one of the approximately 40 digital signs isn't working so staff can reboot it. "That is one of the weaknesses in the system, that it's not two-way. It won't tell us automatically when it's not working properly," Snider said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the report, it looks like a transmit-only dedicated radio system supplied by Siemens. Are the buses actually sending the signals?!?! In contrast, the TfL web site diagram of iBus indicates that the Countdown displays will communicate with the Central System via GPRS or ISDN. Best quote from the article, though, must be this: "We're quite convinced that the new system will work. Not just work better, but work," Snider said. Well yes. Either the spokesperson has no idea what he is talking about or else someone, somewhere really has no idea how to specify the requirements for a system like this. Knowledge of the environment in which such a system is supposed to work is pretty fundamental to designing it correctly. Given the Siemens system is apparently being replaced after 5 years the whole article looks like a half hearted whinge at Siemens when I suspect that there may be other issues like poor specification, no upgrade path and possibly a decline in maintenance activity (pending replacement) that could be equally responsible. I look forward to the link to a newspaper article showing that the transport authority is suing Siemens. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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