TfL seeks tenders for passenger-counting solutions

[S.152]

Transport for London has published an invitation for tenders to provide passenger-counting technology for trial on buses. TfL notes that previous trials involving CCTV have lacked accuracy. The tender document states: “Bus crowding information for TfL passengers isn’t currently aligned with the TfL vision of where it wants to be.”


TfL says accurate live passenger data would enable passengers to make decisions about their journey and prepare them for what to expect, inform service controllers and planners, enable traffic light-control systems to favour crowded buses and give drivers an indication of the crowdedness of their bus when their view is obscured.


The information required as part of the scope of the project is: number of passengers boarding at a stop; number of passengers alighting at a stop; number of passengers on the bus (occupancy on departure of the bus from that bus stop); loading (the total occupancy as a percentage of capacity); occupancy or availability of the wheelchair area and occupant type in the wheelchair area.


TfL subsidiary London Bus Services Ltd is open-minded as to the sorts of technologies that could address the requirements.

Taken from Bus News 12/04/24
Extracted from a TfL Press Release 04/04/24

[abellion]

Hopefully this goes somewhere, it reminds me of when some buses (59?) had a display downstairs showing the upstairs seating capacity. Similarly other concepts like attatching countdowns to stops and the paper ones in the timetable slots don't seem to spread very much either

[matthieu1221]

My mid-sized city in France recently got infrared sensors installed above the doors as the system went free for residents with no tapping in required anymore. They tick the boxes for what TfL want barring the occupancy/type of occupancy of the wheelchair bay but they can detect the size of passengers boarding (children, adults, wheelchair users) and objects transported (suitcases, scooters, bikes, buggies). Quite nifty things with the added improvement of being able to analyse passenger flows as it can detect boarding vs alighting compared to the old system of just tap in when the system was paid.

It came up to 5.3 ish million Euros for 350 or so vehicles plus options for 180 additional in separate phases plus all the back-end tech and software so around 4.5 million GBP.


I hope this goes somewhere as it might TfL to stop thinking about capacity in terms of corridors! Just because there are empty buses going down the same way for a few stops doesn't mean that there's ample capacity when the one I want which goes a different way after that is full.

[MetrolineGA1511]

TfL had better take care in case RATP bid, lest they pull out soon after taking up the tender lol!