Software helps riders keep track of buses
Aworking mother stands outside on a cold winter night wondering when her bus will come, or worse, if it has already passed.
Sean Adams, chief marketing officer of Red Ball Internet, knows the fear of being caught in that situation turns a lot of people off using public transit.So his company is doing something about it.
Adams hopes that some day soon commuters across Canada will be using his company's new trax software to get text messages to tell them that their bus is just around the corner before venturing outside.
"These are the tools that allowridership to increase," he said Tuesday, as the Moncton-based company announced it's in the midst of commercializing its trax system and its BusCatcher system that gives transit users real-time updates on buses.
"When you're providing this new technology, you get new people riding the bus."
Sean Adams, chief marketing officer with Red Ball Internet, left, and William McIver Jr., project leader and senior research officer at the National Research Council-Institute for Information Technology in Fredericton, stand by a map of Moncton showing the locations of all of its buses.
The software tools, created with co-operation from the National Research Council-Institute for Information Technology in Fredericton, let municipalities manage fleets of vehicles,
specifically in the mass-transit sector.
Adams said the technology will stand out from others because it allows transit managers to customizetheir system and gives them two-way, real-time, high-speed telecommunications links to everyvehicle in their fleet.
Adams said city managers will particularly like the technology that gives them a real-time understanding of their fleet and show them where they're burning money because of idling or speeding.
"We're looking to savemoneyfor municipal administrators," he said.
Red Ball, which has done some preliminaryworkwith Codiac Transit in Moncton, is looking to break into the market with Canadian transit systems that run fleets of 20-250 buses.
William McIver Jr., the technical and strategic lead on the project for the National Research Council-Institute for Information Technology in Fredericton, knows there's a demand for the product.
Like many business travellers, he's often had to piece together disparate pieces of transit information in another city to get the travel information he needs.
"Because most people around the world are using the Internet and cellphones, the modules we've built in will allow people to access the data they want ...What we offer is more interactivity," McIver said.
He said the three main benefits of trax are that it can bring operational savings, help transit agencies be greener and increase ridership.
He said the company is doing that by offering "predictive and dynamic bus arrival information" to potential riders.
Red Ball's system operates off of the iBurst 4G wireless data networkRed Ball Internet has rights for in Canada.
The companyhas established its network in Moncton and Bathurst.It has also announced its arrival in Fredericton and has sights set on Saint John.
Christian Couturier, director general of the institute, said partnerships between the institution and companies such as Red Ball are creating new opportunities in New Brunswick.
"We helped them get the product built and now they're taking that out into the marketplace and it will have an economic impact in the community and they will create more wealth in New Brunswick," he said.
