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Agenda Item # 7

BOARD MEMORANDUM

BACKGROUND:

CTA committee member Barbara Rhodes requested staff to investigate modifying the “Stop Request” system to activate a next stop announcement.  The idea was to use this as another means of announcing the next stop.

DISCUSSION:

The current technology being used to announce stops relies on a Global Positioning System (GPS), which utilizes satellites to locate the actual position of each bus along the route.  Stop announcements are activated when a bus enters into a defined geographic area surrounding the stop to be announced.  These areas are known as a “trigger boxes,” and their size varies depending on factors that include posted speed limits, distance between stops, and signal availability between the buses and GPS satellites.  The goal is to appropriately size each trigger box such that the announcements will not be activated too early or too late.

In contrast, the “Stop Request” system is designed to notify a VTA operator of a passenger’s desire to be let off the bus at the next stop.   It was not intended to be used as a passenger information system, and as such was not designed to be integrated with the stop announcing system.   Merging the systems would be difficult and costly. 

The current communication system (which includes the stop annunciation feature) is old, and much staff time has been devoted to ironing out problems and improving its performance and reliability.   Investing more staff time and resources in an attempt to modify and expand the functionality of this system would not be practical, and it would likely jeopardize the level reliability that staff has strived hard to achieve. 

VTA has taken your comments into consideration and when we replace the aging Advanced Communication Systems as new technologies become available, we hope that the new system will accommodate both the needs of the disability community and VTA.

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