Hey Tyler, you ever hear of this?

[hAm53]

I don't why this popped in my head, but I figured I'd ask you what this was all about.

back in feb '04 we were sitting at a bus stop at PoR when I notice a CM is standing there taking down the time the busses are coming on a clipboard (for some reason the MK bus was taking forever, but i do remember that there were like 5 AK busses at that time).
we got to talking and he said Transport was thinking of putting some sort of sensor on the busses that would be read by the bus stop, then sent back to where they keep all the Transport dispatchers.
Lets say that no MGM bus was "scanned" in within 15 minutes (there would be a clock at the bus stop telling the guests how long since the last bus) then a light by a "push me" button would blink and dispatch would be told to send a bus over. aparently the button would only work if the clock hit a certain #.

i've had a couple times when a bus driver sees a bunch of people sitting around and nobody gets on his/her bus, i've noticed that they'll ask where the guests are headed, and they'll radio dispatch to send a Epcot bus to PoR.
so why invest all of this stuff into a fancy dancy computer system?

so did anything ever come of this, or was this just some CM that was bored with taking down bus times and spent too much time in the sun?

 

[seashoreCM]

There was talk of a system where resort guests would swipe their room keys in a kiosk similar to a fast pass machine to request a bus. Intuitively, I guess such a system would be so incredibly expensive that continueing to schedule buses manually turned out to be better.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

Bus scanning systems have been around for a hundred years, back then they were called "headway recorders" and were used to keep tabs on drivers' wherabouts. For trolley cars, the process was automatic and triggered by a sensor on the overhead wire. For buses, the driver had to stop at strategic locations and push a button on a pole or kiosk. An impulse was transmitted via leased phone line to a central location where pens made marks on a scrolling paper strip with hours and minutes of the day also marked off.

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

I have not heard of such a system... I can't really see it working too well, though. Our buses are dynamically dispatched, so there are no fixed MK buses, or EC buses, or whatnot. A driver at Port Orleans staging is a Zone 3 bus, and they don't know where they are going until they get dispatched.

Our Dispatchers do have tablet PCs that they use for dispatching. That system keeps track of all dispatches, and what buses are going where. As long as the drivers are using thier radios to keep Dispatch aware of where they're filling up, what stops they missed, and crowd conditions, there really would be no need for such an expensive system.

As for having clocks telling when the next bus will be there, I hope that never happens. If a bus gets held up at a previous stop because they were assisting a guest, or for whatever reason, and then they become 1 minute late... EEP. Or, if they're running early, then they'd have to wait for a due out time.

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

Bus scanning systems have been around for a hundred years, back then they were called "headway recorders" and were used to keep tabs on drivers' wherabouts. For trolley cars, the process was automatic and triggered by a sensor on the overhead wire. For buses, the driver had to stop at strategic locations and push a button on a pole or kiosk. An impulse was transmitted via leased phone line to a central location where pens made marks on a scrolling paper strip with hours and minutes of the day also marked off.

Interesting tid bit... I never knew that. Thanks