As with most of transportation vehicles, also buses are equipped with onboard computers and sensors. These sensors monitor every move of the bus and knows where it is at any given moment and where, according to the schedule, it should be. Some of this data is visualized to the driver in a very simple color scheme: red for being late at a stop and green for being on-time. Bus drivers are happy with these simple visualizations, as it is a lot faster than comparing the bus schedule with the actual time.
All the information collected by the buses are transferred back to the data-centre and are analysed in real-time. In the control centre, the same visualizations are used to help the staff understand what is going on and take action if that is required. For example, a waiting bus can be told to hold a few seconds longer to ensure that passengers make their connection, thereby drastically improving customer service levels.
335 buses on the streets in Aachen that transfer over a 1 million sets of GPS coordinates every day, which is stored for 3 years. This data helps the company to easily update their schedule based on actual needs on the street. Aachen is not the only city that has started to use this system. The company behind the technology has sold it to over 350 cities around the world. It is so popular with transportation companies, because more and more they have to report to their local transport authorities whether or not they have reached their Service Level Agreements.
Thanks to data transport companies can drastically improve their customer services, keep the customers up-to-data via applications that inform the customer about delays and improve their schedules a lot easier. If carried out correctly, this can be done without privacy issues as shows this video about the Aachen public transport.