23 May 2019

Tait completes TfL bus digital radio project

Tait Communications has completed its work to upgrade Transport for London's (TfL) surface fleet of 9,200 red buses (which run over more than 650 contracted bus routes) with high-reliability digital radio communications.

Tait was chosen in March 2018 by TfL to replace London’s bus radio communications system with a new digital system. The project was successfully completed by Tait, on time and within budget and Tait worked with Trapeze ITS to ensure the fleet deployment was completed on time. Initial cutover to the new system was achieved in November 2017, with operational use beginning a month later.

Tait’s EnableFleet device management solution automated the process of converting between the legacy analogue device profiles to the new digital mobile radio platform, while simultaneously creating a centralised management database for the devices. This brought the installation time down to 20 minutes per vehicle and through doing so, allowed 9,000 vehicles to be rolled out with the new equipment within six months.

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The system agreement between Tait and TfL gives the latter access to a range of KPI reporting, monitoring and management services, which are delivered from Tait’s global service management centre and Tait’s UK based services team is on duty 24/7 to provide TfL with on-site field services and service delivery management.