St. Albert buses will be boasting higher IQ’s this fall, with the introduction of Smart Bus technology.
Nearly 100 per cent of St. Albert Transit’s fleet has now been outfitted with the technology, which will provide real time updates on bus locations, along with audio and visual announcements for riders.
Transit operations co-ordinator Dustin Creviston said Smart Bus will form the foundation for future Smart Fare technology, when the days of having to carry coins in order to ride are gone. That project will assist St. Albert Transit to tie into regional transit systems with ease, he said.
“It’s better to integrate with everyone else to have the same technology just to avoid duplication,” Creviston said.
“We want to be compatible from step one with everyone else, to avoid waste and back-tracking.”
The city's current technology, Next Bus, will be replaced by Smart Bus, and will provide live bus predictions on Google Maps and "many" third-party applications. Creviston said the city hopes to have the technology live by the end of October.
Currently the city is in its final stages of testing the Smart Bus technology, ensuring pronunciations and spelling of streets are correct for announcements. Smart Bus will also help bring St. Albert transit in line with human rights requirements on transit systems across North America, Creviston said, providing those with visual and audible impairments better accessibility.
“The SmartBus allows us to be pre-emptive and provide this valuable service to people with hearing and vision impairments, ahead of being requested or ordered to do it,” Creviston said.
Plans are in the works for tying together transit systems in the region, including Edmonton, Strathcona County and St. Albert through the use of Smart Fare technology. In 2015 the Alberta government approved GreenTRIP funding for the regional initiative, a capital project with a price tag of $51.6 million.
In 2016 LTK Engineering Services was retained to oversee the project and in 2017 Vix Technology was contracted to design and build the Smart Fare technology.
For Smart Fare to work correctly, Creviston said the bus needs to know its exact GPS location, which Smart Bus provides the backbone for. Once Smart Fare is up and running, riders will be able to use credit cards, debit cards and other compatible smart cards and smart devices for payment across transit systems in the region.
Creviston said timelines for the eventual introduction of Smart Fare are “fluid” and was not able to give a set date for when Smart Fare will be up and running in St. Albert. He added negotiations between regional partners for the project are ongoing.
The City of St. Albert was unable to say what its share of the $51.6 million regional Smart Fare project would be.
Coun. Wes Brodhead described St. Albert’s future fare system as “innovative,” and said a measured approach for introduction is the right way.
“I think the fair payment is complex and I’d like to see it happen sooner rather than later, but you don’t want to introduce something like that and then have it fail straight out the gate,” he said. “I think the measured introduction of Smart Bus and Smart Fare technology is going along well.”
Brodhead added we live in an age of information and increasing the amount of information available to customers of St. Albert Transit allows people to manage their trip much better.
He added there are a “lot of good things that come out of this,” and it is a long time coming.
“Stayed tuned. When it gets rolled out, I think it will be a good day for public transit in the region, and it’ll only get better as our systems start to work together on a more consistent basis,” Brodhead said. “Who knows what the future holds when it comes to future regional transit.”
