(16 Mar 2021, 9:21 pm)Jamie M wrote New destination kit goes upwards of 1£k per lot direct from them, so I'd expect nothing less for all the stuff you need to make it suitable (door feed, speakers, the visual displays, the box behind it, software). You then have to have someone to program/maintain it/repair it. Then really, you need wi-fi kits to make it scalable, which is another faff on and associated running costs. It's definitely a cost on bus-by-bus basis, and I'd hate to see the costs over several hundred vehicles.

Enough money to pay some ground staff a bit extra an hour, I'd imagine, though that's just dreaming!

I was expecting somewhere around the £5k mark per bus, the equipment itself isn't actually that expensive, it's the software/people that's the real money pit.

Hardware wise, the system can probably run on something as low power as a Raspberry Pi, the speakers are probably £5-10 a pop, LCD/LED displays are cheap as chips these days, I'd expect them to be around £20-30 a screen (cost price, not to the operator, there has to be at least a 5-10x mark up from Hanover), all the sensors are probably pennies. So, in terms of raw cost, you're probably only looking at £100-200 for the hardware

If I'd actually paid attention in school, I would definitely think about developing a low cost alternative.

(16 Mar 2021, 10:04 pm)Big O wrote You think Stagecoach are really spending £250k on those polished turds that we call the E400MMC?    The Siemens used system in London is really good and integrates the likes of scheduling also.  I do think the North-East has potential to become a great city for Transport, its just whether or not the ministers will back the industry up here. I think NSAs, an oyster style ticketing system etc should have become standard years ago.

The thing is, Oyster style ticketing could have become standard years ago, but everyone went their own way with the smartcards. If they'd have worked together with Nexus on the Pop cards instead of each having an incompatible card, we could have been there a decade ago!