Mizter T wrote:
Yeah, you're right, you might as well just give up, there's no point
in trying to make anything better whatsoever. In fact they might as
well give up on running buses, anyone who needs to get anywhere should
just get a car. I can't see any problem with that idea.

I did not for one moment suggest that things should not be made better,
rather I suggested they probably would not. I would love to see highly
reliable displays but, for whatever reason, it just hasn't been managed
yet. I appreciate having good, timely information so that when delays
occur I can take alternative routes but the Countdown system does not
provide this. When, for example, you let a few buses pass because a
preferential one is coming in "2 mins" - it is damn annoying when this
doesn't transpire even 10 minutes later and that bus has disappeared
entirely off the display like a ghostly dream. The difficulty then is
after a few big let-downs, the information ceases to be trusted.

I also suggested that the displays should become a little more
intelligent, using statistics to improve the accuracy of the
information, flagging delays etc. This would not necessarily need
real-time route position information but could be estimated just by
sensing the buses as they pass the stop. Such a system would
self-calibrate and have an number of other advantages. They would also
display the current time of day obtained via the 60KHz time signal.

ESB