Next generation passenger information system in London

Updated departure times for 8 500 buses now available everywhere

Transport for London (TfL) is introducing the next generation dynamic passenger information system. In order to be able to provide comprehensive information for some six million passengers every day, the municipal transport authority is using the passenger information system IVU.realtime from the German software house IVU Traffic Technologies AG. The latest departure times for more than 8 500 London buses from about 19 000 bus stops are collected by IVU.realtime and after processing these are made available on electronic displays, smartphones, and via the Internet. IVU.realtime forms the core and the data hub of the new information system. A new feature will be the integration of cloud technology, so that real-time data can be made available for external applications.

A particularly impressive feature of this project is the amount of data which has to be processed. Every second, up to 5 000 departure times of the various bus operators in London are received from the ITCS System and processed. After only two seconds, the information is made available for the relevant media. The system is able to respond to up to two million enquiries per hour.

The text message and Internet information service was officially launched in October 2011. A goal was that passengers should not have to forego the information service even if bus stops are not fitted with an electronic display. The travellers only need to send the code number shown at the bus stop as a text message to a central telephone number and they receive the departure times displayed on their mobile phone. Within a few months the numbers of people using the service had risen to more than 700 000, generating up to 300 enquiries per second. Since November 2011, electronic displays have been successively going into service at the 2 500 main stops, and this roll out is already half-finished. The overall system is designed to be fault-tolerant, so that it will continue to operate even if a component malfunctions.

Test operations for IVU.realtime.cloud are due to begin in the summer. With this new service, the real-time data will be made available through an application programming interface (API) for other applications such as smartphone apps. IVU.realtime.cloud thus provides the basis for the integration of the dynamic timetable information in all sorts of websites. A subscription can be taken out for live stream data which can be integrated into the subscriber’s own services. The system will be operated in cooperation with Microsoft in the Microsoft Azure Cloud Infrastructure.

“With this major order we have been able to show the enormous potential of our systems”, comments Dr. Helmut Bergstein, Member of the Executive Board of IVU Traffic Technologies AG. “The technical development of our IVU.suite in accordance with the latest concepts makes it possible for us today to process millions of datasets in fractions of a second. That opens up many new opportunities in major cities worldwide.”

IVU Traffic Technologies AG is carrying out this project together with telent, the British technology services company for telecommunications networks, which has overall responsibility as general contractor.

IVU Traffic Technologies AG has been working for more than thirty years with some 300 engineers to ensure that transport in the world’s major cities operates reliably and on time. People and vehicles in expanding cities are continually on the move – a logistical challenge which calls for intelligent and reliable software systems. The standardised software products of the IVU.suite and tailor-made IT solutions are used to plan, optimise and control the scheduling of vehicle fleets and personnel, support the choice of branch locations and ensure that election results are determined correctly.

IVU. Systems for vibrant cities.

Contact:
Madlen Dietrich
Corporate communications
IVU Traffic Technologies AG
Bundesallee 88, 12161 Berlin
Germany
Tel: +49 30 85906-0
E-mail: Madlen.Dietrich(at)ivu.de
www.ivu.de

This release was published on openPR.