Operators Are Using New Technology To Improve Bus Appeal
Did you know that this week is national ‘Catch the Bus’ week, highlighting the benefits of using buses and encouraging those who do not normally do so to give them a try?
With congestion on the roads getting worse, growing parking challenges and the impact of increased car use on air quality, there are good reasons to consider a switch to public transport.
As the organisers have said this week, if every driver in the UK switched just one car journey a month to the bus, that would save two million tonnes of CO2.
To that needs to be added the work that operators are undertaking to address the common reasons, comfort and convenience, for giving the bus a miss.
Alongside the significant improvements in vehicle standards which the ‘Platinum’ and ‘Signature’ brands have brought to some Solihull routes, technology is being increasingly used for passenger experience improvements.
An increasing proportion of buses now have on board wifi and all National Express vehicles are feeding real-time tracking information to smartphone apps and those bus stops with displays.
The borough’s other main operator, Diamond Buses, also recently invested in real-time tracking.
At present, the vehicles can only be followed at their depot but Diamond, on its website, has declared an intention to extend this facility online to passengers ‘soon’.
The big drive in the past year has been into hi-tech ticketing.
Both National Express and Diamond now have mobile ticketing smartphones apps that allow payment before travel.
Then there is contactless payment, which Diamond introduced across its entire fleet in April, the same month that National Express started its trials on certain routes.
