Dublin Bus maps out database investment


10 Jul 2007

Dublin Bus has signed a deal with a Dublin-based software company to develop a Bus Stop Database system capable of holding pictures, GPS co-ordinates and vehicle information.

North Dublin-based eSpatial, which has won major spatial database deals with the Irish and US Governments in the past, will build the Dublin Bus database system on its iSmart technology, which is based on Oracle 10g application server and 10g database.

It will also be built using Oracle Locator, which is becoming a standard within the geographical information system (GIS) industry.

The new system will be used by Dublin Bus for the data capture, analysis, storage and maintenance of bus stop information.

Currently, this information resides in disparate spreadsheets and databases.

Bus stop information will be integrated into the new system, which will include a mapping component based on eSpatial’s iSmart technology.

The new system will overlay a mapping database with other forms of information such as pictures, GPS coordinates, drawings, documents and forms.

The forthcoming Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system will also use information from the new database system.

“We are delighted to be working with a global GIS software and technology company headquartered here in Dublin and we are excited about the asset management capabilities the system will provide us with,” said Donal Keating, manager of operations support at Dublin Bus.

“Plus we get an excellent return on investment as the web-based data capture and maintenance capabilities greatly reduce the dependency on deploying costly GIS tools,” he added.

By John Kennedy