Real-Time Management and Control of a Bus Public Transport Network: The STCP Experience

STCP is the main bus operator in the Porto Metropolitan Area. The experimental phase of using fleet tracking and management systems fitted on public transport vehicles began in the late eighties, but only in 2002 the current system (SAEI) covered all the buses of the company. Nowadays, these systems are integral company management systems. In this paper, the experience of the past six years or so is presented. The main reasons for the use of such systems are detailed, the architecture and functionalities are described and the importance of accessing real-time information together with subsequent analysis of the data obtained is underlined.