GPS on buses coming soon

GPS on buses coming soon
Bus Timings On Your Fingertips
Mini Joseph Tejaswi | TNN

Bangalore: Here’s a peace of information for commuters who are used to that ‘blind wait’ — without a clue on the arrival or departure schedule — for BMTC buses.
Keonics in association with Siemens Information Systems is running a pilot project for BMTC to introduce global positioning system (GPS) devices on its fleet. Around 200 buses and 20 bus shelters are going to be part of the project, which will start in a few weeks.
A GPS hardware device, which comes with powerful receiver, speaker, memory chip, GSM phone and GPRS technology, will sit on the windshield of a bus. The nearest telecom tower will locate the GPS device (the location of the bus), record the time and other details and in turn beam the information to a data centre situated on the BMTC office premises.
Analytics and algorithms are automatically prepared based on these data, and finally the centre sends bus arrival information to a GSMbased display panel at the bus shelter. The digital panel will flash route number, vehicle number, expected time of arrival, service type (ordinary or premium) and destination.
Also, if two buses are
heading towards the same point at a time, the traffic controller who monitors the fleet from BMTC can direct one of the drivers to stagger the vehicle a bit to avoid two buses reaching a shelter at the same time. Even a 3 to 5 minutes gap between two buses of the same route, can be of great help to commuters.
BMTC is also working on a Bus Information Display System, which will display information on all buses plying between the airport and destinations in the city.