Tait has completed its roll-out of a major radio communications system for Dublin Bus - a significant project spread over three years and involving extensive customisation of Tait products.

Dublin Bus services 120 routes with about 1200 buses and 2000 drivers. In a city where traffic congestion is reaching critical levels, maintaining contact with mobile staff, both bus drivers and supervisors, is vital for the efficient operation of public transport. A six-site TaitNet MPT 1327 trunked radio voice and data system was chosen to provide reliable and flexible communications.

Each bus has a Tait T2030 mobile radio installed with specialised hardware and software, and Tait Orca Excel portable radios are also carried by supervisors and maintenance staff and deployed in some vehicles.

The T2030 mobile radios installed in each bus, interface to 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 master LDT.

Project manager Gavin Milio says the Dublin Bus contract involved significant changes to Tait hardware and software, from the terminals through to the Line Connected Despatcher (LDT).

For example, system features such as call diversions and a centralised database allow supervisors and dispatchers to call a bus driver by dialling a number that represents the driver's current bus route and duty (shift) number.

Mr Milio says one of the most significant challenges of the project was providing the Tait Orca Excel portable radios with this dialling functionality - a task that was achieved through implementing a specialised numbering scheme. The scheme operates using diversions and required extensive software development in the Tait Orca, T2030 and LDT.

Group calling on the system allows users to talk with a group of other radio users, for example all drivers on a particular route. The system has also been developed with many configurable settings such as defining groups, allowing Dublin Bus to modify the system as their needs evolve.

Dublin Bus system now serves as an excellent reference site forTait in Europe, according to Mr Milio.

"There has been a huge amount of development effort put into this project, and a large number of Tait staff have been involved in it from the outset," he says.

Read more information about mobile radio networks.