Bus on demand mobile phone app in Helsinki

Impetus

Kutsuplus is a mobile phone app that allows you to put in a call for a minibus to pick you up at an address or bus stop number, on a shared ride basis, to get to a specific destination. An on demand bus service.

The server assigns a vehicle to the task, based on its location and the planned route for its current passenger load. Cost 3,50 € + 45c/km. The system is a hybrid between the bus (which is like legacy TV - you have to be at the right time on the required channel to see your programme) and a taxi (eg video on demand).

There is no reason why this idea is not fine-tuned to large scale urban public transport needs. Or public transport needs in a rural area. The earlier people reserve for their travel requirements in advance the better the system will operate. Add pricing flexibility to it (like airline seat yield management systems use) and one might visualise a minibus in a rural area providing a service to bring people to the nearest big town to shop during the day or to a restaurant or pub at night. eg if you want to go to restaurant X at 18:00 it will cost 7€50 but at 20h00 it will be 9€00 or whatever.

Public transport fine tuned to respond to peoples' needs using a mobile phone app or web interface.

https://kutsuplus.fi/home

Victor

This is not dissimilar to the Rural Transport Programme in Ireland, although the Irish version (a) is focused on rural areas and (b) needs pre-booking.

Some countries also allow taxi-sharing, where taxis are allowed pick up fares along the journey. I'm not sure how prices are split.

Impetus

Victor wrote: »

This is not dissimilar to the Rural Transport Programme in Ireland, although the Irish version (a) is focused on rural areas and (b) needs pre-booking.

Some countries also allow taxi-sharing, where taxis are allowed pick up fares along the journey. I'm not sure how prices are split.

Ideally a system of this nature needs access to a universal database of modes of travel. There is no reason why "the American tourist" entering the country at a Newry border crossing or one of the airports can't plan a journey to a remote rural area, riding along for part of their trip with people commuting to their local market town or village.

http://www.transportforireland.ie needs to be open to mobile phone and other application developers/service providers via XML or API or some other technology. This could be greatly improved by giving each building a street / road address (ie building number and street name), ignoring named houses and replacing them with a numbered house (or using a look-up table to get from named house to house number on street x).

Mixing this on demand system with scheduled services would provide a win - win system for all operators, and users.

The website name http://www.transportforireland.ie is rather silly. In Switzerland it is www.rail.ch (it covers everything door to door not just trains, in English). If you go to www.sbb.ch you end up in the same site only in German. www.cff.ch in French or www.ffs.ch in Italian. It is memorable in each linguistic culture.

fits

Have you come across this op? https://carmacarpool.com/index.html

Victor

Impetus wrote: »

Ideally a system of this nature needs access to a universal database of modes of travel. There is no reason why "the American tourist" entering the country at a Newry border crossing or one of the airports can't plan a journey to a remote rural area, riding along for part of their trip with people commuting to their local market town or village.

This can already be done with the NTA journey planner.

http://www.transportforireland.ie needs to be open to mobile phone and other application developers/service providers via XML or API or some other technology.

There is already an app. All the data is open already.

This could be greatly improved by giving each building a street / road address (ie building number and street name), ignoring named houses and replacing them with a numbered house (or using a look-up table to get from named house to house number on street x).

Another day's argument, but most journey planners don't need a text address, only a geographic location.

The website name http://www.transportforireland.ie is rather silly.

Then use www.a-b.ie - the same website.

Capt'n Midnight

Impetus wrote: »

The server assigns a vehicle to the task, based on its location and the planned route for its current passenger load. Cost 3,50 € + 45c/km.

Based on the price that's just a taxi rather than a bus.

With any sort of discount even a Dublin taxi would be cheaper for two people. Unless the 45c/Km is shared between all the passengers.


The opposite of this would be the Matatus in Kenya. It's a crammed mini-bus. And if it's fairly empty heading out of town and there's a bus full of people on the other side of the road they will dump all the passengers , handing them the fare for that point onward , cross the road and pick up the more lucrative queue and head back into town.

Impetus

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Based on the price that's just a taxi rather than a bus.

With any sort of discount even a Dublin taxi would be cheaper for two people. Unless the 45c/Km is shared between all the passengers.


The opposite of this would be the Matatus in Kenya. It's a crammed mini-bus. And if it's fairly empty heading out of town and there's a bus full of people on the other side of the road they will dump all the passengers , handing them the fare for that point onward , cross the road and pick up the more lucrative queue and head back into town.

While the price looks expensive for a bus service, it is a service on demand - as opposed to having to wait for who knows how long (depending on the country) for the next bus to arrive. One's time is money etc.

The Swiss transport system is not a million km from the Matatus system. You buy one ticket which does for multiple interchanges en route. eg you take a tram from central Zurich to a suburban node (eg Wollishoven) where there will be multiple buses fanning out in various directions to take one to within a few hundred metres of one's destination. You could also take a train to Wollishoven using the same ticket and then hop on a bus. Connecting bus departures are synchronized to tram and train arrivals so there is no waiting between one mode and the other. The extreme ticket is the 1cl AG which allows one unlimited use of virtually all public transport in Switzerland, on first class, for a year. The other extreme is the Einzenbillette which takes one for a short journey and no more.

http://www.zvv.ch/opencms/export/sites/default/common-images/content-image-gallery/tickets-pdfs/Broschuere_Tickets_and_Prices_English_2013.pdf

There is no reason why an app can't be engineered to handle interconnections between transport products at travel nodes where multiple products hub and facilitate easy connection.

One of the worst case scenarios is in Irish (and other British "designed" cities) where the main transport hub (ie the main railway station) is not in the city centre - as in Dublin (Heuston) and Cork (Kent). This leaves one with the problem of establishing a movement friendly switching place for inter-modal travel. No railway station at the airports either.

It reminds one of the tourist asking for directions, and the local telling him not to start from here....