A Ride on a Taxibus

The Following Story Illustrates IGT Travel from the Perspective of a Journeying Passenger.

It is 8:22 am in the city suburbs. Alex is taking a last sip of coffee before commencing his journey into work, which is located in the centre of town. He puts on his coat and grabs his cellular telephone. His thumb punches in a few commands on the phone's keypad, and from a list of pre-programmed addresses, Alex selects the destination address labelled 'Office' followed by his embarkation address labelled 'Home'. On the cellular telephone display screen, a validation message summarises the journey that Alex has just requested:-

Taxibus Journey Request
From:	Home > 56 Muswell Hill, N10
To:	Office > 110 Charing Cross Road, WC2
Passengers:	1

This request for a journey is transmitted to the IGT central computer system. Alex waits a moment whilst the system responds to his journey request. He regularly travels to work by IGT and is completely familiar with this efficient and relaxing way of commuting. A few seconds later, the IGT system details a nearby taxibus vehicle that is available to collect him. These details are displayed on Alex's cellular phone in the following format:-

Taxibus Vehicle Availability
Pick-Up	Journey	Fare Cost	Arrival
2 min	34 min	£1.40	8:58 am
Please Confirm: YES | NO

These details tell Alex that, should he opt for it, this taxibus can pick him up in just two minutes, and can deliver him to his office destination at the estimated time of 8:58 pm. Alex hits the YES response to select the taxibus vehicle offered; his cellular phone subsequently displays some confirmatory information:-

Taxibus Selection Confirmed
From:	56 Muswell Hill, N10
To:	110 Charing Cross Road, WC2
Pick Up:	1 minute 50 seconds
Taxibus:	Number 4025

This confirmatory information remains visible and provides a real-time countdown to taxibus pick-up. It is now just under two minutes to go before his taxibus arrives. Alex has just got enough time to check around the house, making sure the doors and windows are closed. His umbrella and briefcase lie by the front door. He grabs the briefcase, but leaves his umbrella behind; he rarely needs his umbrella since he started travelling by taxibus.

Alex glances at his cellular phone: the countdown to pick-up now shows just under one minute. Alex should be outside in the street when the taxibus arrives, so he steps out the house, locks the front door, and walks down to the roadside. A short while later, a taxibus turns into his road. This vehicle has the identification number 4025 marked on it, so Alex knows it has come for him. The vehicle is small and compact: a sleek, narrow minibus with just 9 passenger seats. The taxibus pulls up at Alex's residence, its passenger doors open and Alex climbs aboard. The driver politely greets him good morning, but no money is handed over, nor are any travel passes shown. This is because the taxibus fare is calculated by the IGT computer system and automatically charged to Alex's IGT user account. This makes boarding a taxibus fast and simple.

There are already a few passengers on board the taxibus. As the vehicle moves off, Alex walks down the small central aisle and finds himself a comfortable seat. The journey to the office has been estimated at 34 minutes; Alex wonders which route the taxibus will take this morning. He knows that there will usually be additional passenger pick-ups along the way, and a few passenger drop-offs too. The IGT computer system provides real-time street navigation instructions on a dashboard display screen to guide the taxibus driver along the customised route. However the computer system ensures that all passenger pick-ups and drop-offs lie along a fairly direct trajectory, so Alex's own journey is not really that much lengthened by them.

Half an hour later, Alex's taxibus is nearing his destination. An interior display screen, visible to all the passengers in the taxibus, shows the upcoming stop, and also indicates which passengers should alight at this stop. In this case it is only Alex, and so his IGT user name (which he has chosen as 'Alex-G') is displayed on this interior display screen:-

NEXT STOP: Charing Cross Road Arrival Time: 2 minutes Passengers Alighting: Alex-G

The same information is also available on Alex's cellular telephone. Alex gets ready to alight. All taxibus passengers are made aware that they must board and alight reasonably quickly in order to keep taxibus travel fast and streamlined for everybody. Quick boarding and alighting are made possible by displaying on the passenger's cellular telephone a precise countdown to the time that their taxibus will arrive to pick them up, and by providing this advanced warning just before a passenger's destination is due. The fact that all passenger fares are automatically calculated by the IGT system - eliminating the need to buy tickets from the taxibus driver - also greatly helps to expedite the whole transport process. The taxibus arrives at Alex's destination and pulls up at the kerb. The driver announces "Arrival at Charing Cross Road" and opens the vehicle doors. As Alex steps out on to the pavement he observes that, as usual, the IGT system has guided the taxibus right up to the front door of his office. Which is good, because it had just started to rain.

 

Advantages of the IGT Taxibus

The taxibus brings spontaneity to public travel: it offers an astoundingly fast and flexible way of making a journey. These are the qualities that make the private car so popular. With the car you just get in and go. The taxibus rivals this 'get in and go' convenience: pull out your cellular phone, punch in your location and destination, and a few minutes later, a taxibus will arrive to collect you. One must reflect for a moment to really appreciate the amazing power of IGT. With your cellular phone or wireless PDA in you pocket, all your urban travel needs are literally just a button-press or two away. For those without a cellular telephone, a taxibus journey can also be ordered using roadside touch-screen kiosks specially-designed for the purpose.

The door-to-door service of the taxibus is invaluable for the elderly or mobility-impaired. Many towns have a 'dial-a-ride' or 'paratransit' service for people with mobility impairments, providing minibus door-to-door travel in the local district. Usually passengers must book these rides by telephone a day in advance. IGT can subsume this paratransit service: the IGT taxibus offers more efficient routing and can be requested just minutes before travel. Existing paratransit vehicles, which are specially designed for mobility-impaired passengers, can be incorporated into the taxibus fleet simply by fitting them with the IGT computer technology, which is an inexpensive conversion.

The IGT taxibus does something that the private car very often cannot: delivering passengers right up to the door. For car drivers in most cities, when a parking space or parking garage is eventually found, not only will there probably be a charge for using it, but quite often it will be at some distance from the driver's destination. So the private car often does NOT provide a door-to-door service in practice. This is a problem in bad weather, in areas of high crime rate, and for single women late at night. Leaving a car unattended and out of view can also increase the risk of theft or vandalism.

The door-to-door service of the taxibus has an inherent level of security that neither the car nor conventional public transport can beat. This inherent high security means that the taxibus can safely transport children to school and back on a door-to-door basis, so that parents need not worry about the school run each morning (this will further help clear a great deal of traffic from the roads: in the UK, just before 9 am in urban areas, an astounding one car in five is taking children to school).

The taxibus is particularly convenient for travel to an address in an unfamiliar location. Instead of pre-planing the trip using a street atlas, you simply submit a journey request for travel to this address, and the taxibus will drop you right outside your destination - even if you have no idea where it is! Such is the easy and efficiency of IGT.

The IGT taxibus gives people a great feeling of freedom: wherever you are, a taxibus is instantly available, ready to take you precisely to where you want to go. IGT offers point-to-point transit from anywhere to anywhere. This lends a strong sense of mobility and independence to the traveller; these psychological factors are part of what makes the private car so popular. Nevertheless, though offering freedom and independence, the taxibus is also a friendly, safe, community-oriented mode of transport. So you have the best of both worlds with the taxibus: a socially-inclusive transport system; yet one which provides total freedom and flexibility for the individual.