The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has awarded the contract to develop its Transforming Real Time Information (T-RTI) system for bus services to Ito World.
The system – comprising a data hub, prediction engine and analysis tool – will be used by WMCA’s Regional Transport Control Centre and take in data from 30 bus operators in the region, accounting for around 259 million bus journeys each year.
It will contribute to objectives including helping travellers to make optimal choices in their bus journeys, improving the quality of timetables, journey matching and bus time predictions, and making it possible to run analyses of real time and historic data.
According to the tender document published last year, the value of the contract was anticipated at around £1.5 million.
Confidence booster
Stuart McAleavy, director, transport services at WMCA, said: “The Transforming RTI programme significantly enhances our ability to digitally transform delivery of passenger information, boosting confidence in local public transport and increasing patronage.
“It is a key initiative to increase the ability of travellers to make optimal choices based on accurate and reliable bus information, in order to boost the regional economy and keep the West Midlands moving.”
Ito World is a transit data specialist that has also been working on the Department for Transport’s Bus Open Data Service.
