A great way to get more people to use public transportation

[donrhummy]

Saw this in an article on uses of GPS tracking devices. The part that would be of particular importance is the ability to make traveling by public transportation faster than travelling any other way. Genius!

In Singapore, many buses are equipped with tracking devices, said Kanwar Chadha, the founder of Sirf Technology in San Jose, Calif., which makes microchips for G.P.S. devices. They transmit their location to all the bus stands, where monitors show passengers how far the next bus is. That same location information is sent to the city’s signaling system, Mr. Chadha said, so when a bus approaches a traffic light, it turns green.

We HAVE to get this working in the U.S.!

[Jerseysbest]

I think I've heard of emergency vehicles having this technology in the a few cities in the US, so I'd gather implementing it for buses isn't too far off.

[mochapants]

Most major US cities have this technology on busses, most commonly know as "traffic signal pre-emption". My previous job was programming software to help this get done. Don't know why it doesn't work as well as Singapore.

[ericy]

Most major US cities have this technology on busses, most commonly know as "traffic signal pre-emption". My previous job was programming software to help this get done. Don't know why it doesn't work as well as Singapore.

Yeah, and then there is a black market for the devices to set these things off. Every so often you hear a story about someone who gets caught doing this....

Hopefully the newer devices have some kind of tracking code to prevent this sort of thing.

[bike2math]

Myself, I am most intrigued by the real time information about bus location available at the stop. For myself the most frustrating aspect of using the bus is waiting for one, not knowing if I'm better off trying an alternate route or not knowing if I have time to walk to the next stop.

In C-bus we can look up bus locations on the web (or possibly on an I-phone, I dunno) but to have this info available at the bus stops sounds really nice. The schedules here are basically useless because one wheel chair, a light dusting of snow, or a sporting event will completely throw the bus off of schedule.

[jamesdenver]

San Francisco: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/21/BA0LV60MP.DTL

[donrhummy]

San Francisco: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/21/BA0LV60MP.DTL

It doesn't say anything about using GPS to make it change lights. And the location info is only available on the bus, not at the bus stop.