Adelaide, South Australia have followed in the footsteps of many other tech savvy cities and developed an internet enabled bus going by the name of, “i-commute bus”. The project has been sponsored by the South Australian government in partnership with Cisco systems, Adam internet, and  real-time passenger information system “transSpot” of Israel. The bus will perform a myriad of functions for passengers including route timings, wifi, GPS, Bluetooth access to games and of course (censored) internet. The project has cost tax payers a staggering $500,000 AUD and has taken 18 months to develop.

Admittedly, my first thoughts of this very expensive Australian foray in the connected public transport arena were very negative. Half a million to put internet on a bus in a city that has a highly developed 3G network as well as multiple mobile broadband suppliers? Not to mention, the San Francisco version was a hybrid “Green” bus that balanced out the emissions generated from so much extra weight/technology. The word excessive comes to mind? On the positive, this opens the door for targeted location based advertising direct to consumers. Think- “Hungry? McDonalds at your next stop”. I assume this could be sold at a premium.

Connected busses are definitely a good thing and pave the way for all sorts of internet capable public services such as trains and trams but are coming a heavy price for the tax payer as well as the environment. Great opportunity for marketeers, though!

Source: News.com.au