Combining Mobile Data Transport and Mobile Data Recharging to Address Public Transport Information Maintenance Problems in Rural and Remote Australia

Connecting geographically dispersed communities, public transport plays an important role in rural and remote areas. As bus service frequency tends to be lower than in metropolitan areas, availability of reliable scheduling information is a prerequisite to successfully using public transport services. A persistent issue associated with providing scheduling information at bus stops is the need to maintain up-to-date information at geographically dispersed locations. Printed timetables are easy to handle and to produce but have shown to be difficult to maintain as replacing them requires the maintainer’s physical presence. Electronic timetables, updated over the Internet or other communication networks, solve the update issue given that bus stops are located within network coverage. In large and sparsely populated countries like Australia, however, this prerequisite is not necessarily met. In this paper, we discuss Mobile Data Transport (MDT) as a solution to covering bus stops at locations lacking suitable network coverage. MDT can also be used in countries, such as Austria or Switzerland, facing network coverage gaps in their sparsely populated mountain areas. We also highlight how the approach could be expanded for providing other information services, such as news propagation or tourist information.