New Brunswick transit companies jump on Wi-Fi access but big city transit remains cautious

Moncton did it, Fredericton is testing, and Bathurst is on deck, but large scale Wi-Fi access rollouts to municipal transit systems are daunting for larger municipalities. As a result, many are taking a wait-and-see approach, despite proof that Wi-Fi on public transit pays for itself with increased ridership. “We had a strategic vision,” Dan Babineau, director of information systems for the City of Moncton, tells Tech Media Reports. “We wanted to increase ridership, and we did that with free Wi-Fi.” Moncton took a strict approach, defining key performance indicators (KPIs) and tracking return on investment (ROI). In the end, Babineau could show his political masters that enough new riders were getting on at two dollars a pop to make the service revenue positive. In fact, Moncton’s Codiac Transit didn’t have to create a capital budget to finance the project, but used operating funds to set it up at a cost of $450 per bus, with a monthly charge of $30 or less. But significant investments had already been made in Moncton’s municipal wireless network, and the transit system could piggy-back off of that. “We used iBurst technology from Kyocera Corp, which was provided by Red Ball Internet, a local provider,” says Babineau. “It gave us the coverage, and it wasn’t cost prohibitive. The Kyocera technology was different from other vendors, in that we have only four towers covering the whole city.” And, unlike larger municipalities, Moncton doesn’t have to deal with underground systems or skyscraper canyons. Nonetheless, the Moncton system is impressive in that the hand-off occurs only every four to five kilometres, and it is not pure line of sight. “For larger municipal transit systems it would make more sense to have WiMAX to the top of the bus, and then to have a Wi-Fi router inside to act as a hotspot,” says Daryl Schooler, a telecom analyst at Current Analysis. One complication is that WiMAX is licensed spectrum. “The WiMAX would be deployed by a service provider, not a municipality,” says Schooler. “For Wi-Fi you may have to do modifications and handle network requirements, but it is lot less onerous than trying to win spectrum.” Technologically, Schooler says Wi-Fi and WiMAX make a great combination. Certainly for longer distances and fast hand-offs WiMAX makes sense. Just ask South Australia which is entering into a C$420,000 metropolitan wireless bus trial using WiMAX. That said, Moncton’s Wi-Fi system has been such a success that it has become a model for other cities. The City of Bathurst has signed an agreement with Red Ball Internet for an iBurst mobile network, and the City of Fredericton has just completed a five bus pilot with the same partners. “The pilot didn’t go badly, but we do have some coverage issues,” says Sandy MacNeill, the manager of the transit division for Fredericton. “We are hilly, and we only have one tower.” Like Moncton, Fredericton also benefits from a pre-existing investment in public Wi-Fi, named the Fred-eZone. “We have free internet downtown open to all, as well as the airport,” says MacNeill. “The Wi-Fi is very well used, but to deal with buses we need repeaters with modems and antennas on the buses. It worked – it is just a question of how many riders want it.” Larger municipalities actually have an advantage as the rides are longer: if a rider can be productive on the way to work then transit has a real advantage. There are also opportunities for additional services. “We have integrated GPS units and have our own product called GoBus,” says Babineau. “It will tell you where your bus is at any time in the city.” When contacted by Tech Media Reports the Toronto Transit System said it was in the process of assessing wireless options. A Wi-Fi pilot might make sense, but wireless broadband on cellular networks could make a transit-specific system irrelevant, with the important caveat that riders would pay. Other Canadian cities are no further ahead. Montreal has an RFID-based bus tracking system provided by Motorola Inc to track arrivals and departures, but no system-wide solution as of yet. Neither does Vancouver, despite the fact that The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) just announced the fleet-wide deployment of the onBoard Mobile Gateway from Vancouver-headquartered In Motion Technology, Inc. The technology and the know-how are at hand, but Canada’s largest cities remain cautious, despite the Moncton’s experience. “We are happy to talk about our success, and proud of our partners” says Babineau. “I am receiving more speaking requests than I can handle – there are no secrets.”

New Brunswick transit companies jump on Wi-Fi access but big city transit remains cautious

News | September 16, 2009

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