We welcome the work on improving bus safety by Stagecoach East on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, but its use of the retarder with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) in the UK is not a “first”.
Transport for London’s Bus Safety Development team has been working with London bus operators, manufacturers, and suppliers like Actia for several years, and led the way with trials of the technology on urban buses.
ISA formed part of our 2019 Bus Safety Standard, and has been mandatory on all new buses in London since then. Through a combination of retrofit and new, Stagecoach in London has over 500 buses fitted with Actia systems that limit the bus’ speed through the retarder, with a further 1,800 at the other London operators.
This system uses a digital speed map which can be regularly updated as speed limits are changed, and because it does not rely on mapping the individual routes, it also works when the buses change garages, run out of service, and even on rail replacement.
We have also introduced ISA that stops the bus from accelerating beyond the speed limit on 1,150 Euro VI Volvo hybrid buses, using the less agile route-based mapping and geofencing for each route the buses will travel on – as described by Paul Halford.
It’s great that other cities and operators are making use of technology we have championed, like ISA and AVAS.
