Case Study: Brighton & Hove Buses

Delivering the Best Real-Time Information for an Enjoyable Passenger Experience 

Brighton & Hove Buses is renowned for its singular focus on ensuring every journey is an enjoyable one for the traveling public – as evidenced by the operator being recognised as 2017 Top City Operator at the UK Bus Awards and runner-up in 2020.

This focus was again to the fore throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, when the team’s commitment ensured the delivery of timetable changes which would usually take months in as little as two weeks – thereby ensuring that members of the public needing to undertake essential journeys were able to do so safely, conveniently and without additional stress or worry.

Accurate Information – at all times

Head of Commercial Operations Adrian Strange and his team understand the importance of accurate real-time passenger information, disruption management and timekeeping, and these elements were key reasons for choosing Trapeze as the supplier for the operator’s Intelligent Transport Solution (ITS) system.

As the largest UK passenger carrier outside of London, serving a vibrant city that has regularly hosted events and political movements, Brighton & Hove Buses has a long history of effectively managing major disruption to the network.

Adrian explained: “There was always a sense of panic when we had a vehicle breakdown: North Street only has to be at a standstill for two minutes, and it creates two hours’ worth of work for our dispatchers to recover the network.

“We chose Trapeze due to its broad disruption management functionality: nothing else compares in terms of enabling us to quickly implement diversions using the Lio System to update the vehicles with new route information. This simultaneously updates the passengers with on-board announcements and updates both roadside next bus passenger information signs and feeds updates into our live app. We felt it was vital to have all this in one solid, robust tool that enables us to manage disruption effectively.”

“With Trapeze we can contact drivers on specific route groups, or all 275 vehicles at once, to ensure drivers are updated on developing situations and necessary diversions or route changes. And at the same time, we can publish accurate information on the real-time displays – enabling us to manage any problems quickly and efficiently.

“If it weren’t for functionality of the Trapeze system we wouldn’t be able to recover our network in the event of major disruption, and it would turn into absolute chaos with real-time displays being offline.”

Path Dispatch

Additionally, Adrian and his team have recently started using new functionality from Trapeze, called ‘Path Dispatch’. This actively dispatches and automatically processes alternative routes in the event of any kind of disruption, from extreme weather to road traffic accidents.

Adrian said: “I feel that Trapeze is currently the only supplier mastering this at the moment. This is a really clever system and we can see a lot of work has gone into this. It enables us to keep routes running, even if certain vehicles have to terminate early and other routes need to start in different places.”