Hello,

I think I read somewhere recently that London Buses can be tracked in
real-time to determine their position and hence bus-stop ETA. Does
anyone know what system is employed (preferably the manufacturer of
the kit used)and how reliable it is? Alternatively, perhaps someone
can suggest a contact at TFL.

Cheers,
Simon

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 08:56:29 +0100, PigPOg
wrote:

Hello,

I think I read somewhere recently that London Buses can be tracked in
real-time to determine their position and hence bus-stop ETA. Does
anyone know what system is employed (preferably the manufacturer of
the kit used)and how reliable it is? Alternatively, perhaps someone
can suggest a contact at TFL.

Cheers,
Simon

Should've Googled ... it appears that TFL employ a Siemens satellite
tracking system.

Simon

"PigPOg" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I think I read somewhere recently that London Buses can be tracked in
real-time to determine their position and hence bus-stop ETA. Does
anyone know what system is employed (preferably the manufacturer of
the kit used)and how reliable it is? Alternatively, perhaps someone
can suggest a contact at TFL.

Cheers,
Simon

Countdown system from SLE (France)
http://www.sle-fr.com/

Cheers
Steve

"Steve Radford" wrote in message
...


"PigPOg" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I think I read somewhere recently that London Buses can be tracked in
real-time to determine their position and hence bus-stop ETA. Does
anyone know what system is employed (preferably the manufacturer of
the kit used)and how reliable it is? Alternatively, perhaps someone
can suggest a contact at TFL.

Cheers,
Simon

Countdown system from SLE (France)
http://www.sle-fr.com/

Cheers
Steve

Does anyone know anything about the details about the BESI (Bus Electronic
Scanning Indicator) sytem and how it worked? Other than it based on barcodes
and scanning heads?
http://homepages.enterprise.net/beul.../london28.html

Andy wrote:
"Steve Radford" wrote in message
...


"PigPOg" wrote in message
. ..

Hello,

I think I read somewhere recently that London Buses can be tracked in
real-time to determine their position and hence bus-stop ETA. Does
anyone know what system is employed (preferably the manufacturer of
the kit used)and how reliable it is? Alternatively, perhaps someone
can suggest a contact at TFL.

Cheers,
Simon

Countdown system from SLE (France)
http://www.sle-fr.com/

Cheers
Steve


Does anyone know anything about the details about the BESI (Bus Electronic
Scanning Indicator) sytem and how it worked? Other than it based on barcodes
and scanning heads?
http://homepages.enterprise.net/beul.../london28.html


Each bus had a bar-code and a laser scanner on a concrete post (you can
see it in the photo) to read the code.
Info was relayed to inspectors at control room and they could 'turn
early' buses to reduce bunching and fill large gaps in service.

Bristol had an earlier abortive system with Lasers on buses and
bar-codes on Lamp posts. Unfortunately Lasers shook themselves to pieces
and buses had to be out of service for repair as no 'modular ' construction.

Jim Chisholm

"J. Chisholm" wrote in message
...
Andy wrote:

Does anyone know anything about the details about the BESI (Bus
Electronic Scanning Indicator) sytem and how it worked? Other than it
based on barcodes and scanning heads?
http://homepages.enterprise.net/beul.../london28.html
Each bus had a bar-code and a laser scanner on a concrete post (you can
see it in the photo) to read the code.

Funny this. Many years ago MR had an item about how
BR were putting bar codes on the side of their locos to be
read by static scanners so that they could keep track (oops)
of their stock.

It was in the April edition.

tim

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:02:04 +0100, "J. Chisholm"
wrote:

Bristol had an earlier abortive system with Lasers on buses and
bar-codes on Lamp posts. Unfortunately Lasers shook themselves to pieces
and buses had to be out of service for repair as no 'modular ' construction.

Hamburg used to have (may still do) a system based on infra-red remote
control, whereby the bus would send out a signal to identify itself to
the bus stop flag, which would also have a transceiver in it. Nice
idea, but reliability was awful, especially when the buses and/or
flags got mucky.

These days, GPS technology is so cheap it's almost not worth
considering anything else.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In message , J. Chisholm
writes
Bristol had an earlier abortive system with Lasers on buses and
bar-codes on Lamp posts. Unfortunately Lasers shook themselves to
pieces and buses had to be out of service for repair as no 'modular '
construction.
Less than a third of the buses carried lasers and most of the bar codes
were turned around by the ****, sorry children at the time.
--
Clive

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:33:18 +0100, "Andy"
wrote:

Does anyone know anything about the details about the BESI (Bus Electronic
Scanning Indicator) sytem and how it worked? Other than it based on barcodes
and scanning heads?
http://homepages.enterprise.net/beul.../london28.html


BESI was around before barcodes were in common use. It used metal
strips with little reflective bits in them. Traditionally London
buses have always had a holder on each side for a plate which denotes
the bus's 'running number' (I think that's the correct term). Buses
which used BESI had an extra holder like this, but mounted near the
front between the decks, and the metal strips slotted into this.

The scanning heads had fairly large lenses in them. I've no idea what
sort of light source was used but it would have been very low
technology by today's standards. It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

Martin

In article , Martin Rich
writes
It certainly wouldn't have been a
laser as they were strictly for laboratory use in the 1960s and 1970s

I don't think so. In the mid-1970s I was using a laser in school physics
lessons; the school had at least two for that purpose.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
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