Adelaide gets Australia's first Internet-connected bus

By Stuart Corner
Monday, 31 August 2009 13:13

Strategy

Australia's first Internet-enabled bus has gone on the road in Adelaide for a six month trial providing real-time passenger information; free Internet access via WiFi and other services.

Dubbed i-Commute, the system has been developed and funded by a coalition of technology companies including MIMP Connecting Solutions, transSpot, Cisco, Adam Internet, Podmo Mobile and Webshield Content Filtering. Also, the University of South Australia's Institute for Telecommunications Research assisted in testing the system. Wide area connectivity is provided over the Optus HSPA network.

The real-time passenger information system comes from transSpot of Israel. It uses the bus's location from GPS to display estimated time of arrival to the next stop, real-time news feeds provided by the ABC and time and location-based advertising. As the bus approaches a stop, the screens will display information about the location and any local business advertising associated with that stop.

Passengers on the i-Commute bus will be able to use WiFi-equipped devices to access the Internet free through Adam Internet and content will be filtered using Webshield's filtering systems. Free Bluetooth services provided by Podmo will allow any capable mobile device to access applications for gaming and information.

Access to current news on-screen will also be available. Real-time security is provided by an on-board camera that transmits information to a control centre. Cisco provided its mobile access routers. The entire system cost some $0.5m to set up.

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