TfL spreads digital information on bus travel

Transport for London (TfL) has launched a new real time bus information service for all 19,500 bus stops in London. It can be accessed by passengers online, on a smartphone and via text message. The service is available through the TfL website's travel tools webpage. Users enter a postcode, street name or bus stop code and are able to view live bus arrival times, including expected destinations for the next 30 minutes. Passengers can search for their bus stops on the TfL website by using a route number, a street name or postcode. A map will display all the bus stops in the local area. The information can also be filtered by route number, and bus stop numbers can be bookmarked. Passengers without a smartphone or access to the web can use the service by texting the bus stop code to a special number, at a charge of 12p per message. Kulveer Ranger, director of digital London at TfL, said: "Over 6 million bus journeys are made every day in London and this fantastic application of bus data will now enable people, wherever they are, whatever they are doing, to have at their fingertips the power to know exactly when their bus will reach any one of the capital's 19,500 bus stops they want to use, at any time of day or night. "This technological step forward will revolutionise the way people use London's buses and will banish the need for them to ever wait at a bus stop again." The authority is also introducing new countdown signs to replace the existing 2,000 at bus stops, with an additional 500 new signs at selected key stops. TfL said the new signs will have improved visibility for visually impaired passengers and will display more travel information than the old signs. Later this year all the bus data will be made freely available for developers to design specific smartphone applications. This article is published by Guardian Professional. For weekly updates on news, debate and best practice on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.