Interworked iBus-display-ETM

Electronic Ticketing Machines we had since the 80s in Britain, of course rolled out over time since the first iterations had poorer reliability.

Displays have been electronic by way of Dot Matrix Indicators since the 80s-90s in Britain, though few buses in London adopted them as London Transport tested the tech and then turned tail.

These were Leyland Titans (T929 T1000 T1002 T1005) as well as a Renault PR100.2 (RN1).

I was eventually going to make a post like this, the thought to write it now came about as I pondered over the iBus changes that I made a post on as well as discussions in chats.

Edited screenshot of BBC's video
Current cab setup

So we'll be seeing our current setup [ETM, inside blind controls, driver iBus screen, interior iBus displays]

Then comparing them to other bus setups (not dissimilar to roasting your budget gaming PC setup), where frankly the rest are either a lot better than us, or not worse than us. Britain falling behind is an internal motto it seems.

Jumping straight into the meat and skipping the foreplay, we have (as in image above) three ways to interact with the core functions of the bus. The ticketing machine, the exterior display, and the interior display/announcements.

Is that bad?

Yes and no.

You can look at it is a positive, how much so I'm finding it hard to list, let alone debate.

In a negative sense however, it's a lot more scattered around. Indeed one function isn't overlapped by another. Though this is inefficient, by all purposes and intents.

Sometimes it's better to have a centralised system. Sometimes it's better for things to be decentralised or in parallel form.

For this post, we're looking at why it should be centralised, where possible and applicable of course.

Examples of centralisation being Automatic display changes; Integrated ticketing; so on so forth.

Automatic display changes

Solaris Urbino 18
Keolis 2735, Angered Centrum 

By proxy of OMSI and community modders recreating real-life buses in their countries (mainly in Europe, a few in America and Australia), I have learnt that buses can automatically change displays when they're at the end of routes.

I've seen it first hand in Angered Centrum in Gothenburg, watching a 75 roll into the terminus and automatically change displays into a 73b to Gårdsten before the doors even open.

This doesn't mean buses have to display a different route.

Another example in Nesoddtangen, Norway. A 575 rolls up into it's final stop (Nesoddtangen) and automatically changes displays into a 575, without input from the driver.

Critical for this to work is the IBIS/iBus/whatever-name has the schedule in it's system. In our London case, the iBus does.

Temporary curtailments, such as roadworks or protests in Central London would nullify some of the positives here, though read below addressing Curtailments.

Manual display changes happen in London. The 389/399 are effectively one route using a sole bus ex-299. The circulars H9/H10 and H18/19 as well as R5/R10 also do.

Obviously automating those will be a quality-of-life improvement for existing drivers, with the side effect of eliminating human error.

Integrated ticketing, ETM

A bus only ride, a bus+U-bahn ride,
cost the same in Berlin. BVG.

This deserves it's own post, though again you can turn to Europe for a clearly better experience.

Hindsight wasn't 2020 back in the 2000s, as TfL did note of the future possibility to integrate bus fares and underground fares with Oyster. Though the issue was system limitation on Oyster's part. The new resolution, therefore, was Contactless Payment which TfL was the transport pioneer of in 2012. By 2020 contactless is used widely in Britain. In 2014 cash payments was made a thing of the past as the majority of people adopted contactless payment on their credit cards one way or another, or buying an Oyster card for just £3 (in 2022 that's rising up).

Usually it's someplace in Europe that has it better, but it's genuinely South Korea that has TRULY made it an amazing experience for not only transport, but day to day life. 

TfL London
Bus vs Bue+tube

Want to pop into a convenience store? Pay with a T-money card.

Want to go to city centre in Seoul? Pay with a T-money card.

By bus? T-money card.

By train? T-money card.

By bus and train? T-money card.

That's scratching the surface of the true flexibility of the T-money system in South Korea.

Not all of Asia is amazing, there's bound to be someplace worse than it's rivals. For Europe it's evidently us Britons. In Asia, frankly it's Tokyo (not even Japan, just the ginormous metropolis of Tokyo) with effectively 7 different cards since there's multiple private operators. The plus side is that they're inter-compatible mostly.

ETM as a one machine for all

Though now, there's only about two functions the current Wayfarers do in London for drivers.

    - Log in/out driver's schedules

    - Register a passenger into the system with an existing valid ticket.

That's and good and dandy. Prior to 2014 (when cash was stopped), the Wayfarers would constantly have some level of use for people buying tickets onboard the bus.

They don't even print tickets of validation, unless you're making your money's worth from the McDonald's coupons from your emergency fares(!)

Jokes aside, there are genuinely a few core features on the Wayfarer that, consolidating the Wayfarer and iBus MDT into one system shouldn't be an outlandish thought.

Bushmakin's Channel
OMSI 2 • Haren (line 20) • Add-On Citybus S31X
A representation in OMSI

Almex have long been creating ticketing machines. Them and Wayfarer are the known brands here. Almex also exist outside here, of course, like in Europe.

Unlike our old Almex machines and in general older machines, the newer ones in Europe do have the ability to 

a) enter your duty

b) select internal route+destination display

    this applies to the external ones too, by proxy

c) general ticket machine

Truly, the combination of three different machines in your average London bus cab; fused into one touchscreen tablet.

In Britannia in 2017, the new Ticketer was trialled by First and then standardised across the company. Of course other companies trialled it as they pleased and/or rolled with the new tech no strings attached. 

London's Wayfarer is on life support until the inevitable day these reliable(?) machines become so outdated that they would fit right in Natural History Museum as a modern relic.

Curtailments

Another quality-of-life-improvement could be seen in the Underground, regarding curtailments. 

    Recall if you've ever been on a District Line, or perhaps other lines. How many times has your final destination changed? Swiftly, no less?

That would be direct input from the controller, having the power to change the train's display from the control room. It does make sense.

OpenBVE, 1995 TS on the Northern Line

As of 2022 most lines are Automatic Train Operated, relinquishing the driver to just door controls. Even before then when they also had to drive, there's a lot more active responsibility.

To then add to a call from control room telling you "your destination has changed" it'd be an extra thing on your workload that will take a few minutes to address if you were then told "change your displays and the announcement" or the sorts. Bearing in mind most tube lines exceed 20 trains per hour easily. 60 divided by 20 is 3. That's 3 minutes as a lowball estimate. One hiccup can cause minor delays very quickly on a frequency as thin as that, albeit there is leeway. If it exceeds leeway, the delays could snowball.

So it's more convenient for trains to move as smoothly as possible.

In addition, with the possibility for a control room to interfere with buses' ability to display curtailments, should also have the foresight to mandate automatic-curtailments, overriding the existing schedule.

Example; 159s and 453s are curtailed to Lambeth North due to the usual protests that happened every 2 days.

Currently when buses are on-stand at Streatham or Deptford Bridge, the usual iBus terminus displays for the next departure. The driver then overrides by inserting a curtailment.

This could then instead be automated.

Oversimplified code representation

----------

if disruption = 0

    then display "x to Oxford Circus"

if disruption = 1

    then display "x to blank"

if disruption = 3

    then display "x to Lambeth North"

----------

Whereby the x is interpreted by the iBus-display-ETM as the route, so can be both 159 and 453 for hypothetical if disruption = 3.

Current reliability woes

It's been noted iBus has some reliability issues, which makes linking displays and iBus to be a difficult affair. This makes it all the more for iBus 2, when that rolls out, to incorporate this feature which the rest of UK had the ability to adopt, let alone mainland Europe. I say ability, because I'm not certain if most operators have done it, but where there is a will there is a way.

You'd have no doubt seen a bus have it's iBus display an asterisk "*" as the ageing tech gets confused of it's location

Existing no-no's

Another roadblock is iBus' intentional feature to not allow curtailments on last trips. It's done to discourage the final bus of the day being curtailed, as that incurs a penalty. Even outright prevent that. The side effect is that it disregards other duties' last trips which don't equal final bus. Many buses finish during the early evenings after all, meaning if a driver is late and could incur extra hours over their schedule, they'll have to turn short. They can't plug it into iBus as that doesn't allow it. They will adjust the blinds though, as usual.

Other limitations

In the driver's MDT, you can see a bus behind you. How late you are.

You can't tell if the bus behind you is curtailed.

You can't also see how far ahead the bus in front is.

As soon as the bus leaves the assigned route, it becomes confused and only displays an asterisk " * " until the closest stop on line of route, in most cases.

One fun one is whenever a passenger asks a driver "how long is the bus behind?" or even when the next bus in the opposite direction is coming.

Currently the only possible answer is "sorry" or along the lines of "it's coming soon."

It's not high up the priority list for sure, as most people have data on their smartphones and there's multiple apps to check the next bus arrival time.

In the end, there are always limits to everything a human can do. We try our best to overcome obstacles. After thousands of years of cultivating and roaming the lands, we ventured into space, making many inventions before which would help that endeavour, as well as create even more things to improve existing infrastructure and new inventions on the whole.

Where there's a will there's a way.

Regardless of seeking perfection or not, if there's a flaw or bug you patch it up. No software started bug-free.

Same for iBus. No doubt it has improved in it's first few years and even until now, as much as I'd not call some iBus changes improvements per se (119's destination, ahem) but nonetheless true for some.

I wouldn't call the well-integrated systems (the one ticketing-IBIS-display) perfection, though that is a role model we should follow. I would be lying if I said I doubt they'd incorporate some of these for the upcoming (whenever it unveils) iBus 2. Though regardless, some issues and barriers fundamental to it have been identified through trial and error, so iBus 2 would be a polished upgrade over the first iBus without doubt.

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The newer iBus display if routes were interworked [wink link]
Using 2 and 432 northbound

I did have a fun time writing this post in what I thought was record time (unlike holding a post hostage for a year, ahem). I hope I conveyed positive messages, not that I have high hopes someone in TfL would acknowledge them from me, but alas convey the knowledge to everyone. Perhaps someone somewhere does, then word spreads. Though in reality, the knowledge of this was clear if you ever left the country.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and until the next one, stay safe!