ITS and Transit

ITS and Transit

The public transit industry is one of the few industries that have not really exploited the significant advances in technology that have occurred in the last 10 years. There has been little effort to use advanced technologies to reduce operating costs or increase revenues. Yet there is a wealth of technology that can be applied to improve operations and revenues.

Echelon has pioneered in the development and application of INTEGRATED advanced technology systems. The Echelon systems have, in one box, provided the following functions.

Smart RF card usage for fare payment.
Created a seamless fare card system where multiple agencies could all pay for fare and transfers seamlessly.
Collected boarding/alighting data to address Section 15 reporting and allow for multi-agency disbursements.
Issued bar coded transfers (for cash users) and decoded their transfers on usage.
Announced bus stops using automated speech and display systems.
Updated and downloaded data automatically using local area, spread spectrum radio.
Conducted automated schedule adherence monitoring using GPS and built-in schedules.
Tested the impacts of bus signal priority systems integrated with the passenger counting systems.

These technical discussions will discuss some of the key lessons learned with regard to implementation, agency contribution, technology performance, cost, system performance, etc. The discussion pages will be completed in the next few weeks.

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