EU Bus System of the Future project details

The EBSF project spanned between 2008 and 2012, with a budget of 26 million Euros and was a part of EU’s 7th Framework Program. The project members counted a total of 47 companies, including the five leading European bus manufacturers, public transport authorities and universities.

The birth of the ITxPT standard

The EBSF project was also the foundation for the ITxPT (Information Technology for Public Transport) standard. Pilotfish was involved in the part of the project that addressed ITS standardization.

An Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is an advanced application which, without embodying intelligence as such, aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable various users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and ‘smarter’ use of transport networks. Read more.

Goal

The main focus for the project was to stimulate standardization, with the aim to lower costs for onboard applications, to enable shared functionality, increase operational data quality, and to stimulate competition.

Solution

The EBSF project initiated an open, service-oriented architecture where shared functionality is separated from onboard applications.

Pilotfish was focused on connectivity between onboard equipment, the cloud and the back-office and on management of the onboard devices. Much of the shared functionality, was implemented by the Pilotfish® Vehicle Gateway. The standardized gateway with standard cables and open standard software solutions resulted in a wide range of important benefits for the future.

The possibility for all systems to reuse the infrastructure for GPS, communication, data and positioning, lowers the costs for adding new onboard applications, and enables cost-effective implementation of new IT solutions to legacy systems.

The open standardized interfaces stimulate competition, lower operational costs for communication and maintenance and take away unnecessary subscription fees.

The validation of critical operational data and shared data handling results in increased data quality. Maintenance costs are reduced by inventory of onboard devices and automated detection of broken devices as well as the greatly reduced number of antennas, broken in the depot washers.