REAL-TIME PASSENGER INFORMATIONSUPPLEMENT 07 Neil Scales


Chair, Real Time Information Group (RTIG)


Steering RTPI in the right direction


Passenger information is, of course, an essential and inherent part of public transport. You can’t expect people to travel if they don’t know where they can travel, which services take them, or when they can expect to arrive. Equally, they need to know what it will cost, and would probably like to have some idea about what facilities are available.


In the ‘old days’, we did this with timetables, posters, public address announcements, and so on. Any question not answered through printed or broadcast prose could be addressed to a nearby service professional. And eventually people got to know, roughly, what was likely to be on offer: ticket office, escalators, snack bar, and so on. With the advent


of technology, we started doing things a little bit more smartly. Public address systems were automated, so


that less human intervention was required. Timetables were made available online. Commercial arrangements were established which allow a single ticket price to be offered for a multi-leg, and even multi-operator, journey.


And of course we recognised that what was


said on paper didn’t necessarily reflect how services were actually running on the day. So real-time passenger information (RTPI) was born, with statements such as: ‘your bus will arrive in five minutes’, ‘your train is unfortunately running ten minutes late’, ‘the next service is cancelled’ and ‘all services are currently suspended due to bad weather’, all becoming common features. RTPI has been available for decades on


some services, but is still far from universal. That travellers place high value on good real-time information is not in doubt. In March 2011, the UK consumer body Passenger Focus presented some research that – inter alia – ranked the importance of ‘facilities passengers consider


» Providing RTPI depends on a complex web of operational information systems behind the scenes «


important to have at stations.’ Guess what came top? Visual real-time information. Passengers ranked Staff a close second, and then some way behind was Toilets. Timetables weren’t even in the top ten.


Passenger information is an essential and inherent part of public transport


Problems and pressures Providing RTPI depends on a complex web of operational information systems behind the scenes, telling us where vehicles currently


www.eurotransportmagazine.com


Eurotransport Volume 9, Issue 3, 2011


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