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£117m satellite tracking ... and we still miss buses
Mark Prigg, Science Correspondent09.11.07
London's £117 million satellite bus communications project is being plagued by technical failures and "ghost buses", it was claimed today.
Transport for London's iBus scheme, which started last year, will eventually mean tracking equipment is installed on more than 8,000 vehicles on 700 routes across the capital.
By using GPS satellites, the system allows buses to be tracked, with the information being shown on buses and at bus stops and even texted to passengers' mobile phones.
It is being tested at two of London's 87 bus garages but staff told today of major reliability problems.
A source at one of the garages said: "The system crashes on a regular basis, up to four times a week, and once it was down for most of the day.
"In the meantime, drivers have no communication whatsoever and we don't know where the buses are."
The source claimed drivers had to use their mobiles to ring in their bus's position to their station.
The Code Red system is also issuing random emergency "ghost bus" calls, in some cases up to 60 times a night.
The source said: "Bad wiring on some buses means that every time they are started they make an emergency call.
The danger is if there is a real problem, it is not going to get picked up."
Tom Young of Computing magazine, which uncovered the problems, said: "This system is crucial to Transport for London's management of buses in London, so these teething problems need to be ironed out as quickly as possible."
Trade union Unite, which represents London's bus drivers, has complained to trial operator Arriva.
A Unite spokesman said: "We are concerned that Arriva addresses these problems before the roll-out continues and more drivers are endangered."
A TfL spokesman described the claims as "complete rubbish".
He said: "The new system using iBus is completely robust. It uses two independent radio systems, so if one fails, there is a back-up in place.
"Drivers have direct access to the London Buses emergency control centre 24 hours a day. On no occasion have they been unable to contact the centre.
"When this system was introduced a small number of 'ghost' driver incident reports were received but the problem was quickly resolved."
Arriva declined to comment.
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Two things strike me about this. The first is that the system seems to be completely over-engineered. Do we really need GPS to track London buses? How did we manage to run a perfectly good bus service for the last 100 years? How about just having realistic timetables, and bus drivers with the discipline and conscientiousness to keep to them? Or would that require some actual management? The second thing is the pathetic grumbling of the staff involved. Every time I pick up the paper there seems to be another group of staff somewhere tattling about how rubbish the expensive new system they've been forced to use is. Public sector staff are especially desperate to trash their own investments. The ability of the British worker to work out what is wrong with a system and concentrate doggedly on moaning about it, rather than say fixing it, is legendary. What a poor spectacle we make.
- Andrew Treesurgeon-Lale, Llondynn, UK
In Brighton, passengers can log on to their bus stop from home or work to find out when buses will be arriving. Could it be that bus services are better in cities other than London?
- Cynthia Hay, London, UK
The waiting time for a bus display is very useful (do I have time to nip into the take away before my bus?) that's IF it worked reliably.
Last night at a bus stop in New Eltham the only bus listed was a 321 in 11 minutes but a 314 appeared after about 3 minutes! Often the display shows no information at all which indicates to me that the system is down.
It's as useless as the 'delayed' message sometimes shown on overland train services - why can't they say 'Not yet left Charing Cross' or similar so at least we commuters have some idea what's going on!
Transport companies shoot themselves in the foot by not giving commuters enough information to allow us to make other choices (e.g. I'll take a bus or go have a pint as my train is going to be another half hour). It's no wonder (though no excuse of course) platform staff get abused, transport companies line them up as cannon fodder.
- Chris, London
