[LINK] Standards, please! The third coming of electric vehicles

[Ben Elliston]

Hi Tom

> Just to get this back on topic for Link, public transport systems
> can incorporate telecommunications so that they have more of the
> convenience of private transport. If the system knows in advance
> where and when you want to travel, the load can be better
> handled. Also if people know when the service will arrive they can
> better plan.

The only reason we even have public transport timetables is because of
a lack of information shared between consumer and supplier.  I did a
bit of work in intelligent transport systems 15 years ago and at the
time envisaged a radical reconception of public transport scheduling
where there were no routes.  You just had a fleet of taxi-like
vehicles moving around, vacuuming up passengers wherever they were.
This model works best for the buses running around the suburbs,
delivering people to hubs.

One flaw I recall in this idea is that the passenger won't have a firm
idea of the time they might arrive at the hub, since this will depend
on other passenger requests.  However, that could be handled with
scheduling algorithms, for example, that will ensure that no one
passenger spends more than 20 minutes on the bus.  Additional pick-up
requests would have to be handled by another bus.

All just a matter of programming. :-)

Cheers, Ben
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