Transit customers have been requesting better information services from ETS. They want to know with more certainty when the bus is arriving at their stop. They want to know if there’s been a delay so they can stay inside where it’s warm on really cold days. Many have travelled and seen such features readily available in other cities around the world. The city of Edmonton is growing and public transit is an important travel option for more and more citizens. To attract more riders, transit needs to compete with the features that make auto travel so popular. That is, transit needs to be more reliable, predictable and accessible. Onboard bus technology and ETS Live ® Departures Boards at transit centres are elements that ETS is assessing as part of its Smart Bus solution.

 In February 2011, Edmonton City Council approved $3.4 million to implement Phase 1 of a project to implement technology on ETS buses in order to deliver real-time information to customers. The ETS Live® Departures Boards are similar to the signs at airports that inform travellers about the status of their flight’s departure. Many cities with advanced traveller information systems offer this information service at major bus stops and transfer points. Two ETS Live® Departures Boards were included as an element of the Phase 1 Smart Bus project to be located at West Edmonton Mall and University of Alberta Transit Centres. The other elements of the Smart Bus project include equipping 45 buses with the information and communication technology to report location information through the cellular network to the new Transit Control Centre computer-aided dispatch tool. Smart Bus Phase 1 also includes adding automated stop announcements, real-time web information tools and mobile apps to find buses along their routes. The web tools and mobile apps are still in development.

 This name was chosen as these signs are similar to the boards at airports that provide travellers with real-time information on the times that flights are departing. The name is intended to be descriptive of the function of the boards.

These boards work by providing real-time information for bus routes with Smart Bus technology already installed. Scheduled departure times are displayed for all other routes operating from these two transit centres. The boards check for updates on the status of Smart Buses regularly via the cellular network and change the display when the buses’ real-time adherence changes.  The schedules of all bus routes are loaded into back-office systems and updates are sent to the signs via the cell network. The computer-aided dispatch tool, known as TransitMaster, deployed in the Transit Control Centre and Inspector vehicles, is the system that continually monitors and reports the status of buses operating on the Smart Bus equipped routes. It also has the schedule information for every route. 

 The real-time information is updated when new information is available via the cell network. The system checks for updates approximately every 20 to 30 seconds or as needed, when a change occurs. The route schedule information is updated in the back-office systems based on changes that are made to routing and schedules by Edmonton Transit at various times of the year.

 Yes, these boards are now part of the infrastructure of the transit centre and will be active throughout the day. They will only provide schedule and real-time information when the bus service is operating but will display the date and time continuously.

 Yes, there are heaters in the signs that come on when the temperature dips below freezing. They are rated to work to a low of minus 40 degrees Celsius.

 Yes, the bus routes and departure times will cycle through the three lines available on the screen for variable messages. The top line displays the current date and time.

 The University of Alberta and West Edmonton Mall Transit Centres were chosen for a few reasons. Firstly, the Smart Bus routes pass through these locations and the ETS Live® Departures Boards is one element of Phase 1 of this project. ETS wanted to showcase real-time departure information. These are both busy transit centres so it creates an opportunity to expose this new technology to a large number of transit riders. Finally, the infrastructure was in place to mount these signs without running new wiring, for example, at an additional cost.

ETS is aware of this difference and is working to fix it in future phases of the Smart Bus project. At this point, this difference is related to the way the routes and schedules are created in the back-office systems. The Departures Boards can only display the regular destination for a route whereas the bus can display the destination for a specific trip on a route. In the case of the route 130 Northgate, the demand for service to the NAIT campus is higher during school hours so ETS puts in extra service to accommodate the number of passengers wanting to ride that portion of the route. The route 130 NAIT is a portion of the full route 130 Northgate. Transit customers are encouraged to check with the bus operator to confirm the destination of a particular bus if there are any discrepancies.
 

The ETS Live® Departures Boards are similar to the signs at airports that inform travellers about the status of their flight’s departure. The routes are displayed and ordered based on their next scheduled departure time or estimated (real-time) departure time for Smart Bus routes from most recent to last.