Bus drivers fail to log on to grid

737 buses have GPS systems linked to kerbside timetable displays. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Electronic bus timetable signs in Auckland are still not working properly because some drivers do not log onto the system.

The network of signs - which now covers 175 bus stops in Auckland City - is supposed to tell passengers how long they have to wait for the next bus.

But Auckland's main transport agency heard this week that the system still has an unacceptably high failure rate because drivers sometimes fail to register their buses at the start of each route.

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority is about to take over the problematic system from Auckland City Council for a token price of $1.

The council has spent more than three years trying to introduce it to central bus routes for an initial cost of $7 million.

As well as equipping 737 buses with automatic vehicle location equipment linked to 175 street-side passenger timetable displays, the city council has connected 180 sets of traffic lights to software which lengthens their green phases for late-running buses.

But the number of buses slipping through the system such as when drivers fail to register them at the start of each trip remains high, as the transport authority prepares to spend a further $17.4 million over four years on a regional rollout.

The system is also due to be extended in the next few weeks to another 200 or so intersections with signals throughout the region, allowing buses more time to get past traffic lights if they are running late.

Project costs have so far been met mainly by Government and Infrastructure Auckland grants, leaving the city council to pay $600,000 for what it calls the "real-time passenger information and signal pre-emption system".

Minority contributions will be sought from other Auckland councils and bus operators as the system is expanded.

But the Auckland Regional Council's transport committee sought an assurance from the transport authority this week, before approving its takeover of the system in principle, that the flaws could be ironed out.

Transport authority project manager Mark Lambert said the core of the system was not "fundamentally defective". The main problem lay with its reliance on manual intervention to log buses on to it, a flaw he was confident of resolving.

Even so, the council has made its approval conditional on the resolution of technical and operational problems, and a guarantee that transferring the system will not expose its transport authority subsidiary to a Government claim for gift duty.

Drivers now have to punch in bus identification details at the start of each trip. If a driver fails to do that, the system "defaults" to the official timetable, meaning passengers will be told the bus is due to turn up on time - even when it is running late, or not at all.

A minority of buses have yet to have equipment fitted, meaning passengers are sometimes surprised by their unannounced arrivals at stops.

City council officials claimed to have cut an initial "missing service" error rate of up to 30 per cent down to 3 per cent to 4 per cent, but a report from transport authority chief executive Alan Thompson acknowledges considerable improvements are still needed.

A separate report by regional council officers described system performance as "relatively poor" and warned that passengers may simply ignore the message displays or even stop using public transport if they could not rely on the information.

HOW IT WORKS

* Drivers register their buses onto a computer system at the start of each trip.

* This allows them to be tracked by a global positioning system, which calculates their arrival time at each stop.

* The wait time for passengers is then shown on electronic signs at bus stops around the city.

* However, the system does not work if drivers fail to log on at the start of each journey.