Buses as Mobile Sensing Platforms?

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to European researchers, modern buses could be used as mobile sensing platforms, sending out live information to be used to control traffic and detect road hazards. The 3.83 million euro EU-funded MORYNE project was completed in March 2008 with a test in Berlin, Germany. During this test, the researchers 'equipped city buses with environmental sensors and cameras, allowing the vehicles to become transmitters of measurements, warnings and live or recorded videos to anyone allowed to access the data.' "

Traffic cameras?

So what's the difference between this and the traffic/CCTV cameras which are already becoming ubiquitous? If a society wants to go this route, this seems like more hassle, if you ask me.

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The difference is that the buses are mobile. Whereas the traffic/CCTV cameras are stationary.

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Thay are unless there's traffic congestion, in which case the bus is just as stationary as a camera on a pole.

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buses are mobile, thus less likely to be vandalized, easier to maintain, probably less intrusive. And, it would probably cost less to install cameras on buses then to install CCTV at every corner.

Re:Traffic cameras?

Not only that, but as a bonus, you only have to send the repair tech to the bus depot, not the street corner with a bucket lift.

There are many possible and very good uses for mobile sensor platforms ... think "Can you hear me now?" and you're pretty close.

Not only can they be used for traffic data, but also wireless network quality measurement. In addition to this, there are uses for short range wireless networks that could use buses as roving AP's for collection of data from those networks. Think of a WiFi network that mostly only needs connectivity now and then. As the bus drives by, boom, connection and data transfer.

There are stand alone applications that don't normally need connection except to report telemetry data.. buses come in handy. Think of all those cameras, if their network fails, they have no way to report telemetric data... unless a WiFi mobile AP comes in range.. woot! As a back channel for all sorts of things, this works well in the coverage area of the bus lines, and is suitable for many applications without huge infrastructure or maintenance costs.

Great... I've got an application.

How about sensing when buses aren't meeting their route schedule requirements and using this data to improve the public transit system? A somewhat "direct" application to be sure, but one that's sorely in needed in places like metro Atlanta that depend on MARTA [itsmarta.com] for mass transit. I can't even begin to estimate how many times buses have either been substantially late, not shown up at all, or passed right by a stop with waiting passengers. It actually prompted me to buy a car years ago.

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Most transit agencies are already doing that. Unfortunately, it's still fairly tricky to improve schedules, even when you have a year of stop-by-stop arrival times. Planners already did pretty well with the schedules by trial-and-error. Most schedule de

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The issue with MARTA is probably more political than technological. They've been in Atlanta news on more than a few occassions with stories of internal corruption and graft; it would seem that their "leadership" is (historically, at least) more interested

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There was a time in this country when abuse of public power was a hanging offense. While I'm generally against the death penalty for civilians, I might make an exception for those who grossly abuse the public trust.

Works great in New Zealand

One of the biggest hurdles to bus usage is that the customers don't know when the next bus is coming. Here in NZ we have a bus monitoring system that addresses this. At each bus stop, there's a low cost and reasonably vandal proof display with a wireless link. It tells you when the next bus is expected to arrive. This uses real-time bus tracking information which is pretty accurate. Each bus has a GPS and sends data to a central machine which does the tracking and sends out info updates to the terminals every minute or so.

The result has been a huge improvement in bus user satisfaction (and the number of passengers).

The system as a whole tracks bus speeds, congestion etc and the longer term data is used to plan extra buses etc.

Why only buses?

The US government and auto makers are working on the VII initiative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Infrastructure_Integration [wikipedia.org] to collect similar information using all vehicles as probes. The idea is to mix existing electronic systems in vehicles with

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Well, for starters, the government already owns the buses. That's got to be a major plus.

Networking?

FTA:

The computer can also send alerts to a public transport control centre via a variety of wireless connections, including mobile radio systems, wifi or wimax networks, and UMTS (3G).

Does anyone know if it's IP? And what they're using for routing?

It'd be fun to design a mesh routing protocol for mobile stations with no less than four radio links with very different characteristics...

Sad, but true

I thought this was going to be in reference to a flurry of bus-related accidents, like these [kcci.com] here [kcci.com], but apparently Iowa just has the dumbest bus drivers evar. "Hey, great," I thought, "they're going to have buses that will sense when people are near and not let you hit them." Then come to find what it's really about... and I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or not.

Re:Sad, but true

No, the US (and Australia for that matter) has the most ridiculous system where pedestrians and vehicles can both have green lights when crossing each other's paths.

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That explains a lot. Thank you. I'd wondered about that. One of the guys in the articles I referenced as nearly blind. It got me thinking about how a blind person would protect themselves from getting hit when both lanes have a "go" signal.

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I think that's called blind faith. And I think you'd need a lot of it.

Typical

You wait half an hour for a sensor then three come along at the same time!

Slight variation elsewhere

Here in Melbourne, Australia [wikipedia.org], we have Smart Buses [vic.gov.au] that have sensors built on the bus, combined with readers at most stops along each route. The same stops also have electronic displays that show the next 3 buses scheduled combined with their ETA, based on

Paging Ralph Kramden

It's a bit of an exaggeration, I suppose. But AM radio has been broadcasting "drive time" weather and traffic reports collected from local bus drivers since the fifties.

I've come to believe that such a mass of raw data is less vivid and meaningful than th

Collating the sensor data

"Ooooh!, This is interesting, Bob. Every bus except 003729 shows real bad air quality and big queues of traffic. Pull it in and check out the sensor pack" .... ...

"Hi Jeff! I am at the depot, and it seems that bus 003729 had its sensor pack attached to the FRONT bumper of the bus by mistake!"

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Sorry - you're wrong. (not on the bendy buses, their introduction was just stupid, but on the bus lanes). Bus lanes are great, if you're using the tube and the bus to get around. If you're silly enough to want to pay the city their access tax, they you sho

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I can tell you don't live in Swansea.

They've just spent millions of pounds and several years carving up the main roads through the centre into "metro" and normal lanes, supposedly to accommodate bendy buses here. It's caused no end of disruption and queue

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Wow... bad commute into work this morning?

Mine was just fine. Thanks to busses, and the underground, allowing me to sit back and read the paper on my way to work.

How can you possibly try to claim that increased public transport is a bad thing? The more bus

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Heh, see: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poxy [wiktionary.org]