Transforming RTI in the West Midlands

Recognising all the challenges of maintaining a complex Service, WMCA commissioned an Options Report to explore various options for improving bus RTI. This has since been developed into an architectural design and technical specification for a specific element of this service, namely “The System” which comprises a Data Hub, Prediction Engine and analysis tool, which is detailed in this ITT.

WMCA’s vision is to use the outputs of the T-RTI Service to boost confidence further in bus transport to increase bus patronage in the Region. This is key to WMCA's policies of reducing congestion and improving air quality in the Region. Eight out of ten of the Region’s journeys are made by bus, representing a total of 259 million bus journeys each year. These journeys are provided by 30 bus operators with vehicle fleets that travel 72 million vehicle miles each year.

WMCA seeks to achieve the following objectives:

• Increase the ability of journey makers to make optimal journey choices based on reliable bus journey times in order to keep the West Midlands moving, boost the regional economy and improve public health.
• Improve the quality and accuracy timetable, running board, journey matching and bus time predictions against published timetables from all participating bus operators in the Region.
• Conduct real-time and historic data analyses based on stored bus journey time data and use predictive analytics to deliver reliable operational and planning decisions and journey choices;
• Help transform WMCA’s Regional Transport Control Centre (RTCC) into a transport operations nerve centre.