Mobile Internet in Helsinki Public Transport
Mikko Lehmuskoski · Public transport international · 2007
A mobile internet connection is being piloted in selected buses and trams in the Helsinki region. This article describes how the Internet connection would work and explains the benefits for operators and the public. The mobile internet connection would serve as a general communications channel for all information transferred in and out of the vehicle. All vehicles will also be equipped with global positioning system devices that transfer their location to a positioning server every second. This means that the entire fleet is positioned in real-time and allows other services to query the location of any group of vehicles. The major benefits for operators include traffic signal prioritization, vehicle tracking and floating car data that can be used for purposes such as travel time estimations and incident information. Public transit passengers would benefit from the public Wi-Fi connection, real-time information displays, and a vehicle tracking service that could be used to view the location of other vehicles and to estimate arrival times at stops. An open architecture design would enable easy and cost-efficient service production of the mobile internet connection.