Challenge

The challenge is entitled: How could we ensure the good condition of bus shelters and stops and speed up their maintenance?

Context

Bizkaibus is one of the largest public transport networks in the country, with around 110 lines and 2,500 different stops, including 850 owned shelters. This represents a significant challenge in maintaining the service in optimal conditions.

One of the critical points in this regard is the upkeep of bus shelters.

Most stops have shelters, for which it is necessary to:

• Ensure they are kept in an adequate state of cleanliness.
• Check that they do not have physical damage caused by weather or vandalism, among other factors.
• Know which advertisements are displayed on the various panels.
• Know what information is being provided at each shelter and whether it is correct.

To meet these needs, several reporting mechanisms are in place. Primarily, a person is responsible for traveling through the different stops, visually inspecting the condition of each shelter and surrounding area. This process typically takes 7 weeks to review the entire shelter network. Additionally, reports may also come from other services, such as personnel updating advertisements or those responsible for cleaning the shelters.

Combining the different reports results in an action plan to address the various issues.

Through this challenge, the goal is to introduce innovative technology that speeds up the detection (data collection) process regarding the condition of each bus shelter.
However, there are several sub-challenges arising from Bizkaibus’ specific characteristics compared to other public transport systems.

On one hand, as previously mentioned, Bizkaibus has a very extensive network of lines and stops. It is necessary to ensure that the proposed solution can be integrated with the Bizkaibus system while guaranteeing easy scalability. Technologies with high implementation or maintenance costs will be difficult to scale and integrate into current workflows.
On the other hand, it is important to consider technologies capable of reviewing an entire shelter. These structures have four sides. A vision camera integrated into buses might miss one of the sides. Although many shelters have transparent or translucent walls that allow visibility from one side to the other, this is not always the case.

All this represents an additional challenge for the proposed solution. While the pilot could be carried out on a limited number of lines, the project should be designed with the goal of integrating into the entire Bizkaibus network.

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