For many commuters taking public transport, getting from the house to the office can take anywhere from 45 minutes to more than an hour. These days when fueling a car and maintaining one can be a burden to the household finances, it can be a great relief to just go into public mass transport on your daily commute to the office.
For some, taking the office laptop with you can be a great help. You can spend your commute time checking emails or accessing office systems you need to get your job done. A bus or train coach equipped for Wi-Fi access for free can be a great service from mass transport companies.
Wi-Fi is Key
There are already bus and train companies that offer Wi-Fi access for their commuting customers. It’s a modern day amenity that take advantage of public wireless technologies to further foster mobile computing among their “ridership” who often bring their laptops with them. To those with mobile phones equipped with Wi-Fi access features, the service can be most welcome.
Consumer Welcome
No doubt, any form of free access to Wi-Fi is welcome to consumers and commuters alike. Wasting 45 minutes on the road to or from work is now a thing of the past. Employers welcome this development to shave off the working hours or to allow workers to come in late, provided that work has been initiated while on the road. That’s one of the key benefits of getting work done on a buss or train.
Safety and Security
WiFi access is not just confined to commuters. It can also provide security for commuters and transport operators as well. Wireless closed-circuit video surveillance cameras can now be installed in all modes of public transport and through WiFi, can be accessed from a central transport office to see how things are inside the buss or train coach at any time.
Real Time Vehicle Performance Monitoring
On top of surveillance cameras, transport systems can be equipped with wireless sensors that can check engine performance so that remote offices can perform remote monitoring and diagnostics tests on a regular basis or when needed. Busses and trains far from the maintenance depot can report back any problem and terminals can immediately prepare the required spare parts and have the maintenance crew readied for immediate repairs without losing precious time for operators to maximize vehicle utilization.
Technical Problems
There are associated bandwidth problems. Wi-Fi can only accommodate only so much traffic even on 3G backhaul data connectivity to the internet. When you have a bus full of passengers getting online, you have speed problems that can make this convenience feature on mass transport systems a cause for passenger complaints.
At this time, most bus operators thinks that this is not yet a problem as few people take advantage of WiFi internet access features on their busses or train coaches. Many are actually afraid to bring their laptops out into the open when commuting for fear they won’t reach their destinations with them.
But a few do enjoy the immense bandwidth that Wi-Fi offers at the moment. Anytime this usage increase, many are hopeful that the bandwidth technologies will already have keep up with the advances made in 4G technology. GP
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