It's
taken 10 years, but finally the penny has dropped in the dark recesses
of Auckland Transport's brain box.Including our multi-certified skystream turbines for varying applications.
After a decade of bus passenger wailing,these proven front load commercial washer extractor deliver ease-of-use, the public transport provider has conceded its $24.I have recently got a dry cabinet and
can anybody tell me if it the box only controls humidity or also
controls temperature.3 million "real-time" bus arrival indicator system
is a disaster. It lies. It misleads. Instead of helping passengers, it
just drives us crazy.
Hidden
away in the depths of chief operations manager Greg Edmonds' report to
Auckland Transport's last board meeting, he reveals that "evaluation of a
replacement for the AT real-time service tracking system continues. The
new solution will be implemented from September and with the roll-out
of new ticketing equipment on buses, will provide significantly improved
performance of real time passenger information from the third quarter
2013".
He
says a "data warehouse" system will collect and analyse "real time
performance against schedule, ticketing data and customer complaints".
It's
not before time, but true to form, the transport boffins are not
conceding the existing system is a dog, and always has been. Instead a
spokesperson tells me "the system is now 10 years old, the technology is
old and we now have the funding to update. [It's] time for an upgrade,
like a TV, washing machine or fridge".
The
only flaw in that argument is that in any normal establishment, no one
would have put up with a television that for 10 years kept showing the
wrong programmes, or a fridge that warmed the beer instead of keeping it
cold.
The
upgrade will be on the core prediction and calculation engine system
and the on-bus tracking equipment. A trial is already under way on two
New Zealand Bus vehicles. Existing road-side hardware will remain.
Amazingly
my request for any reports on the failings of the old system and the
need for a replacement drew a blank. I was told there was none. Just how
they hope to improve on the existing disaster if no analysis of its
various failings has taken place, I don't know.
Perhaps
the following potted history will help them. The old Auckland City
awarded the original contract to Saab ITS in March 2002 to develop and
implement a combined signal pre-emption system to give buses priority at
traffic lights, and a real-time passenger information system. The
latter, to feed information on the arrival of approaching buses to
electronic bus stop screens. The cost, $6.9 million.A quality paper
cutter or paper folding machine can make your company's presentation stand out.
Trialling
began a year behind schedule, at Christmas 2003. By April 2004,
Auckland City councillors voted to expand the system from a test area to
bus routes across the city - that's despite many warning signs. At
start-up, "missing services" were as high as 30 per cent. By April, the
boffins were embracing a failure rate of about 3-4 per cent as some sort
of triumph. This despite an external audit by Parsons Brinckerhooff
warning against proceeding with Stage 2 and 3 until the system was
running "with far fewer issues".
Even
an in-house Saab ITS technical paper admitted that given the parameters
involved in a bus prediction system, "it could well be argued that an
accurate prediction is more an oxymoron than reality".
Two
years later and with no improvements in the predictions, Auckland
Regional Transport Authority project manager Mark Lambert - now AT
passenger transport manager - argued the system was still a good buy in
that both the software system and the hard were fine.More than 80
standard commercial and industrial washing machine exist
to quickly and efficiently clean pans. The problem, he said, was the
various interfaces between the two, the biggest culprit being drivers
who failed to log on properly at the beginning of the journey. Mr
Lambert planned to remove the human factor from the process.
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