(19 Sep 2020, 4:52 pm)Andreos1 wrote I think the question needs to be asked about GCT and why they haven't grabbed all of the funding the bigger boys have and implemented the avl, contactless technology etc. It's been sitting there for long enough and allowed the bigger boys the unique position of having it as a marketing tool.
It's not as if the bigger boys have anything unique other than a team of people who have successfully applied for dft funding.
There's a deadline approaching for the Bus Open Data Service (unless it's been changed due to covid). Maybe we will see GCT have the same equipment as others over the next few months?
NESTI supported smart ticketing machines for smaller operators - GCT is specifically mentioned in this article: https://www.nesti.org.uk/nesti-news/succ...-day-event
But from what I've understood previously, the vast majority of on board technology - AVL, Plug (or USB) sockets, WiFi, etc, has been at operators own expense. According to the fleet list, GNE for example have 480 out of 686 buses fitted with free WiFi. Even if the installation of that was supported by public money, I very much doubt the ongoing cost of providing the service is. Even if each bus used 10GB of data a month on average, that's 4.8TB of data they're getting billed for.
Open data deadlines are the end of the year / early January - https://www.gov.uk/government/collection...ta-service