Hampshire County Council's ROMANSE project, based in Southampton, is part of the project SCOPE supported by the European Commission DRIVE II programme. The project collaborates with partners in Cologne and Piraeus to implement Advanced Transport Telematics in pilot projects in the areas of Strategic Information System, Public Transport, Urban Traffic Management and Traffic and Travel Information. This paper concentrates on ATT measures being used in public transport and in particular, the implementation of the STOPWATCH system on the trial corrrdor in Southampton. It outlines the system technology, the difficulties experienced and the solutions implemented. STOPWATCH is a system for the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) of buses and the prediction and announcement of their arrival times at bus stops. The trial system was completed in January 1994 and involves two bus companies and 115 specially equipped buses. The study presents both technical and operational difficulties which were encountered in setting up the trial system including those generated from communications, bus operator practices, driver behaviour, maintenance and traffic signals and the underlying effects of deregulation. These have highlighted alterations and enhancements required to both the system and its operation prior to extending it to a city wide network. (A)
Samenvatting