A small city in eastern Ontario is running an experiment that could one day have a big impact on public transit operators across North America.

Belleville Transit has launched a new service allowing customers to summon a bus to their nearest bus stop — and the ride won’t take the scenic route to their destination.

“This is a brand new system that has not been used by any other transit service in North America,” says Paul Buck, Belleville’s manager of transit operations.

The city of 50,000 is moving its late-night bus route to this ride hailing model. It plans to test the concept for a year, and if the “Uber for buses” idea works, it will also be integrated into Belleville’s daytime service.

Source: CBC News

Date: October 2nd, 2018

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/uber-lyft-ride-hailing-on-demand-public-transit-1.4842699

Discussion

1) The information systems issue here is obviously not the buses, but the app that allows buses to be ride-hailed and the system behind this that provides for efficient routing of the buses at times when several users are hailing a bus.  What are some issues that would need to be solved in this “several riders want a ride at different bus stops” problem?

2) Does this technology scale from this 50,000 person town to a 500,000 person city?