Communications: electrical – Vehicle position indication – At remote location
Patent
1994-05-18
1996-02-20
Swarthout, Brent A.
Communications: electrical
Vehicle position indication
At remote location
340539, 340991, G08G 1123
Patent
active
054932955
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems for informing users of urban public transport about the real positions at each instant of the transport vehicles that they are considering taking.
2. The Prior Art
The vehicles concerned in this case are more particularly self-propelled surface urban public transport vehicles and they are referred to below by the word "buses".
It is recalled that in general it is not possible to predict exactly the instants at which the buses serving a given line in an urban transport network will serve each of the bus stops or "stops" of the line.
Although the instants at which the various buses leave the departure depot of the line can be determined accurately, it is not possible to know in advance what difficulties each bus will encounter as it travels along the corresponding line, essentially because of the unpredictable formation of more or less dense "holdups" along the line that may slow traffic down or even stop it temporarily.
Thus, in general, users going to one of the various stops of the line for the purpose of taking one of the buses serving it do not know how long they will have to wait for the next bus to arrive.
They are therefore reduced to waiting for the next bus to arrive without knowing whether their wait will be short or otherwise.
This ignorance constitutes a serious drawback for surface urban public transport.
For fear of being obliged to wait a long time for a bus, which time may reach or even exceed quarter of an hour, and may sometimes take place under conditions of relative discomfort, e.g. standing and exposed to bad weather, numerous potential users use some other form of transport, such as an underground railway or a taxi, while regretting that they cannot benefit from the advantages of surface transport such as a pleasant trip associated with a cheap fare.
To remedy this drawback, proposals have already been for certain bus stops to display information relating to the waiting time expected before the next bus arrives.
That constitutes real progress.
However, to obtain such information, a user must actually go to a bus stop that has been improved in that way.
The information then acquired concerning the waiting time for the next bus is certainly advantageous in that it helps the user to be patient if the time is long.
However it loses much of its advantage since the user still has practically no opportunity of avoiding wasting time, since the range of activities that a user can undertake on the spot is generally extremely limited.
To remedy that new drawback, proposals have already been made to made portable appliances available to the users of buses in a network, the appliances including, inter alia, means for displaying the waiting times associated with buses that can be taken (see document EP-A-0 451 756).
That concept is advantageous.
However, in the implementations proposed, each appliance is associated with a single bus stop, such that the problem of informing the user is solved in part only.
Thus, the portable appliance enables the user to be informed remotely about the waiting time for buses at the usual bus stop from which the user makes bus trips, which bus stop is generally close to home, assuming that the appliance is associated with that bus stop.
However, the appliance is incapable of giving any information about the waiting times for buses serving other bus stops in the network.
Unfortunately, it is often for a user's return journey that the information in question would be the most useful, in particular such information would enable a user to spend a few more minutes performing activities away from home, e.g. examining goods on sale in a shop, with such examination possibly also being associated with consulting a specialist.
In addition to the above limitation on performance due to the fact that each appliance is associated with a single bus stop, information systems that have been proposed in the past also suffer from the drawback of being of complex organisation, and therefore slow, thus
REFERENCES:
patent: 4297672 (1981-10-01), Fruchey et al.
patent: 4713661 (1987-12-01), Boone et al.
patent: 4799162 (1989-01-01), Shinkawa et al.
patent: 5168451 (1992-12-01), Bolger
Patent Abstracts of Japan, vol. 14, No. 105 (E-895) Feb. 26, 1990, & JP-A-13 07 341 (Fujitsu Ltd) Dec. 12, 1989.
Carreel Eric
Lewiner Jacques
Decaux Jean-Claude
Swarthout Brent A.
LandOfFree
System for informing users about urban transport does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System for informing users about urban transport, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System for informing users about urban transport will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1358851