New user information and video-surveillance system for TMB city buses

The 1,170 buses in the Barcelona Metropolitan Transport (TMB) fleet will be equipped with a new user-information and video-surveillance system by GMV. The more than 10 million euro public tender awarded to the company includes three different lots, and the winning bid came from GMV. With this, TMB is improving its passenger service and adding new measures to increase safety and accessibility.

Lot 1 includes supplying the architecture for the buses’ on-board system, which will service lots 2 and 3. GMV will supply a multi-purpose, on-board CPU to all the buses, on which the user information and video-surveillance systems will run. It will also include the network architecture required and a new energy-management system to regulate the activation and deactivation of the on-board equipment.

Lot 2 relates to the user-information system. GMV will supply the 1,119 buses with 29” and 21” panoramic screens with an integrated CPU to offer passengers accurate, real-time service information. Blind passengers will also be able to know when their bus is about to arrive, thanks to speakers, ambient microphones, and receiver controls for activating the audio information.

TMB will have unrestricted access to the configurations for the audiovisual information that is shown to users on the panoramic screens, linking from the route, destination, expected wait times, etc. The new system also feeds information on the service to the existing exterior information panels on the buses, and provides passengers with an audio-information channel, with both pre-recorded announcements and voice synthesis for broadcasting real-time messages from the control center.

Lastly, lot 3 is for the video-surveillance system, which will provide the 1,170 buses with 4,590 interior cameras, 147 exterior cameras, and 42 cameras for analyzing the bus lane, with license-plate recognition. Functionally, the on-board system will record the images from all the cameras, in addition to the alerts and events occurring during service. In addition, a streaming service can be launched either manually at a command from the control center operator or automatically if there is an emergency on board the bus, which will make it possible to display the images from the cameras.

It should also be noted that advanced smart video-analysis functionalities are included, to count the number of passengers on board, detect lost objects, warn of passengers falling, etc.

With this tender, GMV is consolidating its presence in the so-called City of Counts as an outstanding supplier of one of the leading transit operators for ITS (intelligent transportation systems), this time with leading-edge user-information system solutions and improved on-board safety. In addition to increasing traffic flow, preventing accidents, increasing safety, and keeping users informed of what is happening with the bus service, these solutions definitely make transportation more efficient.