The trial is worth £1.8M, half funded by a private sector consortium led by Peter Brett Associates and half funded by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), who are sponsoring the project.

The trial is demonstrating the potential for enhanced communications to improve the reliability and efficiency of existing transport management services provided by RBC and demonstrating how these communications services can lead to significantly enhanced council services for the traveler in the future.

The strong private sector consortium includes Peter Brett Associates, a leading international consultancy (lead partner), wireless system integrators Metranet, Connexionz on bus equipment suppliers, Telematix providing on-foot and in-vehicle navigation software, EBSA providing secure payment systems, Transept public transport consultants and Orange, who have supplied smartphones and supporting services for the trial. The University of Southampton’s Transport Research Group will be undertaking an evaluation of the project.

It aligns with the wider Government agenda on transport and shows clearly both the value of collaboration with key partners and how to successfully exploit the knowledge base of the private and public sectors to drive imaginative transport solutions.

At the core of the project is an enhanced communication network which will use emerging wireless communications technology (WiMAX and WiFi) and the latest 3G mobile phone services.

Supported by this communications network there are a series of sub-projects which are demonstrating the potential for this communications infrastructure to deliver transport strategy objectives and more details of these can be found by clicking on the links to the left.