Dublin Bus, Ireland

The Customer

Dublin Bus services 140 routes with 950 buses and approximately 2,000 drivers.

The Challenge

In a city where traffi c congestion is reaching critical levels, maintaining contact with mobile staff, both bus drivers and supervisors, is vital for the effi cient operation of public transport.

Keeping track of an extensive bus fleet and communicating with drivers is potentially a logistical nightmare, however a customised Tait mobile voice and data solution provides Dublin Bus with reliable and flexible communication.

The Solution

Tait has installed a six-site TaitNet MPT 1327 trunked radio system for Dublin Bus to provide coverage throughout Dublin and its surrounding areas. Each bus has a Tait mobile radio installed with specialised hardware and software, and 100 Tait portable radios are also carried by supervisors and maintenance staff and deployed in some vehicles.

The mobile radio installed in each bus, interfaces with an on-board electronic ticketing machine. This gives drivers a simple registration process when beginning or ending a shift, and means driver, duty and route information can be sent as a short data message to the Line Dispatcher Terminal (LDT).

The Outcome

The Dublin Bus contract involved signifi cant hardware and software developments of Tait equipment, from the terminals through to the LDT. For example, system features such as call diversions and a centralised database allow supervisors and despatchers to call a bus driver by dialling a
number that represents the driver's current bus route and duty (shift) number.

One of the most significant challenges for Tait was providing the Tait portable radios with this dialling functionality - a task achieved through implementing a specialised numbering scheme.

Other system features include group calls to all buses operating on a route, and emergency calls. The system has plenty of scope for upgrading, including GPS tracking of the buses and a number of other data applications.