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Accessing route information, security assistance and tracking buses is all part of the progressing technology upgrade underway at MyCiti stations, the City of Cape Town said on Wednesday.
“We are looking forward to the day when the [Advanced Public Transport Management System] APTMS will be fully operational,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport for Cape Town, Brett Herron.
“Not only will this enable [the Transport Information Centre] TCT to significantly improve the MyCiTi service, it will also allow us to constantly communicate crucial information to our passengers – enabling them to better plan their journeys.”
The APTMS Herron discusses is a collective system of hardware and software which is supplied, installed, and maintained by City contractor TMT Services and Supplies who were awarded the work in April 2015.
“Since then, they have commenced with the process of gradually reinstating the hardware, software and related systems needed to make the control centre fully operational,” said Herron.
This would mean, Herron explained, that all 42 MyCiti stations and its 378 buses would be upgraded with technology which would provide commuters with more information and give the control centre the ability to track its buses and routes.
“Transport for Cape Town (TCT), the City’s transport authority, will therefore know the exact location of every bus at any given point in time,” he said.
“Not only will TCT be able to keep track of any delays to the service, the control centre will also be able to inform commuters about the departure time of every bus on every route.”
This information, said Herron, would be communicated on electronic signboards or passenger information displays (PIDs) at MyCiTi stations.
Thus far, 39 of the 42 MyCiTi stations across the city had been site-accepted and tested. This meant that the intercom systems on the platforms and in the kiosks at all 39 stations were fully functional.
The other three stations would be site-accepted and tested once fibre connectivity has been installed by the City’s Corporate Services Directorate.
Herron added that while TCT worked on the installation of the APTMS over the next approximately 12 weeks, “commuters may hear random announcements on some of the buses and at the stations while we are testing the system”.