1. Various shots of Portsmouth
2. Various shots of traffic
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Domblides, Intelligent Transport Systems Team Leader, Portsmouth City Council:
4. CCTV monitor
5. Domblides at desk
6. CCTV monitor
7. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Domblides, Intelligent Transport Systems Team Leader, Portsmouth City Council:
8. Bus pulling away from stop
9. Tilt up from traffic light to node
10. Node on top of bus
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Brian Jackson, NOW Wireless (developers of the mesh)
12. Tilt up to display
13. Bus arrives
14. People boarding bus
15. Display
16. Bus pulls away
17. People at bus stop
18. Transport kiosk
19. Various shots of touch screen
20. Map being printed out
21. Domblides at the control centre
22. Various shots of buses on computer screen in real time
23. Clock
24. CCTV monitors
25. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Domblides, Intelligent Transport Systems Team Leader, Portsmouth City Council:
26. Various shots of paper timetables
SUGGESTED LEAD-IN
A small city in the UK has adapted military software to help ease its traffic problems.
The airwaves in Portsmouth”s city centre has been developed into a “mesh” network that allows buses to be tracked in real time, with the information sent straight to waiting passengers.
The council say its been a runaway success and are now looking to expand the service.
VOICEOVER:
Portsmouth, on England”s southern coast, is famed for its naval heritage and harbour.
At one stage it had the world”s largest naval base.
The city was bombed extensively during WW2, and while most of it has been rebuilt, unexploded bombs are still occasionally found.
The city has declined in recent years but remains a major dockyard and base – developments like the brand-new Spinaker Tower part of the rejuvenation
But over the years a problem has developed, a slow moving one.
Traffic levels have risen to near-gridlock levels and the Portsmouth City Council is worried.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
“Uniquely for a city of its size in the UK portsmouth is on an Island and we have something on the order of 220-thousand vehicle movements a day on and off the city. This creates huge problems as I”m sure you would be aware – seven lanes on the island, seven lanes off. So we had do do something to encourage people not to bring their cars into the city.”
SUPER CAPTION: John Domblides, Intelligent Transport Systems Team Leader, Portsmouth City Council:
John Domblides doesn”t have to leave work to see how bad traffic has become.
From the council”s control room CCTV keeps an eye on the ebbs and flows of congestion, while he has kept an eye on how to tackle it.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
“We have had new buses brought in. We are now making sure that people know A: it will arrive and B: when it will arrive, so that they have confidence in using public transport.”
SUPER CAPTION: John Domblides, Intelligent Transport Systems Team Leader, Portsmouth City Council:
UPFX BUS
Winning that confidence has been a technological undertaking years in the making.
Buses are connected via a network of transmitters that are form a “mesh” in the city centre.
They are linked to the mesh through their own little nodes which constantly bounce signals giving their location, so commuters know exactly how far away they are.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
“And each node communicates with each other node dynamically. So as a bus comes through the system it connects up and disconnects, just like a mobile phone.”
SUPER CAPTION: Brian Jackson, NOW Wireless (developers of the mesh)
That information is displayed at bus stops – the countdown until the bus arrives.
Domblides says the overall cost of the system was four and a quarter million pounds.
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Post time: Mar-10-2017