LuAnn LaSalle
Montreal — The Canadian Press, Thursday, Jun. 11, 2009 11:46AM EDT
Grab a coffee with confidence, upload a favourite tune or find the shortest bus route to your destination and do it all at the bus stop, after you've dashed out the door.
All this and more will be available at something called the EyeStop, a high-tech bus shelter that will make its debut in October in Florence, Italy.
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed the EyeStop to take some of the tedium out of waiting for the bus.
“The EyeStop could change the whole experience of urban travel,” said Carlo Ratti, head of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT in Boston.
The Canadian Press
An interactive map, part of EyeStop, a high-tech bus shelter that will make its debut in October in Florence, Italy, is shown in a handout photo. A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed the EyeStop to take some of the tedium out of waiting for the bus.
Bus riders fortunate enough to have access to the shelter can check the temperature and air quality, upload photos, find out about community events and see where buses are in real time, said Ratti.
The shelter's interactive features make the city more alive, he said.
The Eyestop uses touchscreen technology and Ratti describes the experience as similar to using Apple's popular iPhone. One of the more useful features, particularly for visitors to a city, is the way the Eyestop lets users visualize a bus route and plan their trip.
“You have a map where you just touch where you want to go and you will see in real time how to go there.”
If you're running late, for example, the EyeStop will start blinking rapidly to tell you to speed it up because your next bus will be along in less than two minutes.
“When there's lots of time, you will see a coffee cup so you can have a coffee before the bus arrives.”
Jeff Casello of Ontario's University of Waterloo said a number of the EyeStop's features already are in place in many transit systems in Canada and worldwide.
But EyeStop researchers are taking them and putting them all in one place, which is “a very attractive and futuristic kind of format,” he said.
“It takes away the onus of having to wait without having anything to do,” said Casello, assistant professor in university's school of planning and department of civil engineering.
The City of Waterloo in southwestern Ontario has real-time information for its buses and destinations can be planned online, but these features aren't available at bus stops, he noted.
Real-time information is most important to riders when they're waiting 10 minutes or more for a bus or when they have several transfers to make, Casello said.
“One of the most onerous things is getting to the bus stop and having no idea how long you have to wait for the bus.”
SENSEable City Lab
Would EyeStop work everywhere?
Casello said it would be a challenge for some cities, given budget constraints, to maintain high-tech EyeStop shelters and advertising would likely have to support it.
MIT lab member Giovanni Niederhausern said EyeStop shelters cost between US$5,000 for a basic EyeSpot – essentially a pole designed for narrow streets – to $30,000 for a shelter with all the bells and whistles. Local advertising would help recoup some of the costs, he said.
Website Geek.com predicts vandalism will be the biggest threat that the EyeStop faces. “If the designers can overcome that hurdle then these structures could become a very nice addition to the city streets.”
Niederhausern said the Eyestop has tempered glass with an anti-graffiti film on it that can be replaced.
He said transit riders won't be able to go online to surf the Internet or check e-mail with the Eyestop's interactive services. But they can use the wireless connection to go online with their own laptops or mobile phones while waiting for a bus.
Ratti also said EyeStop shelters can be adapted to fit a city's architecture and the prototype that will be installed in Florence will reflect its history.
“We hope it will become an icon for the city in a similar way as the red telephone booth is an icon for London.”
Latest Comments
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I used service in the UK a couple of years ago. All the bus stops had a
number, you called a common phone number and keyed in the number of the
bus stop you were at and almost instantly received a text message of
how long before the various busses got to your stop. nowhere near as
high tech but sweet.
Cumbrian.  0
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Without mocking them, let's be frank...usually the homeless set up shop
in these things. Also, Canadian cold weather would play havoc with LCD
displays etc., Glass if wonderful, if it's cleaned...and as anyone with
a glass table knows...if you want it nice, you have to clean it each
day.
Frankly, this is a neato idea, but impractical. 2
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It makes more sense to presume
1) everyone has a cell phone 2) every cell in an area can receive text messages 3) every cell can be GPS located and 4) on prompt, nearest bus stop Longitude/Latitude can be compared with cell Long/Lat and times of next buses texted, perhaps free as Green Move. Check out texting in Vancouver Next Bus format: "59265" To 33333 tripplanning.translink.bc.ca/hiwire The more distant futures holds smartphones that can be pointed at a bus stop and return bus arrival info as in story's picture...not far from "Google Sky" depiction of constellations and Google Maps Streetview Compass Mode. 4
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Here's more information:
http://senseable.mit.edu/eyestop/ 3
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