Raleigh, North Carolina buses get on-board DTV
By Donald Melanson 
posted Apr 14th 2009 5:21PM
posted Apr 14th 2009 5:21PM
Planning to hop on a bus in Raleigh, North Carolina anytime soon? Then there's a chance you could be treated to an added distraction during your trip, as the city has just rolled out its first CAT bus equipped with mobile DTV, which looks to be one of the first projects resulting from those MPH tests that took place last year. This little bit of magic also comes courtesy of a little help from LG and Harris Corp., who are supplying the displays and mobile transmission equipment for the pilot program, which will be expanded to five buses by August, with another 20 planned for the second phase that'll run though August 2010. Of course, your viewing options will be somewhat limited, with a simulcast of local station WRAL apparently the only channel on tap, along with some weather information and, of course, a healthy dose of advertising.
[Thanks, Dana]
[Thanks, Dana]
Just wait til it gets stolen.
hence the security camera directly behind the TVs... now if we could get some mobile internet and a couple 360s in there, that would make for some interesting trips...
My thought exactly. This will definitely bring up the price of public transport.
Great.... ad-nauseam
@Aaron
Yes, security. That, or market research to check out who is actually watching it.
@Aaron
The camera behind the screen will be stolen BEFORE the screen, you dork.
My first visit to the US started at Raleigh Int. Airport. Lived in Durham N.C. for 2 years... Ahh the beautiful memories. :)
Here, have a cookie.
How about some milk with that cookie?
@Saad
Don't you wish you could go back just for the DTV Bus Experience (DBE ™)? I remember using public transportation in Houston. The rides would have been a little shorter, enjoyable.
Here is the funny thing, I use to eat a pack of cookies everyday with a cup of milk and hit the basketball court near my school, every single day for almost a year. I kid you not.
Best cookies ever, and best basketball games ever. I wish I could find my old friends.
That's not funny, it's Saad.
Anyway, we are your old friends, Saad.
Lol.
Los Angeles already has TVs on the Metro buses; while I'm not sure if they're HD, they use pretty much the same interface as the Raleigh ones in the picture
That LG LCD would be soooo stolen in Los Angeles and New York!
Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it!
What?
Dude, Come to Toronto. On our Viva Transit Line, we have had TV's onboard for the last 2 years........old news.
There are also wifi routers on some of them with "Viva" ssid, but it had no connection to the internet when I tried it.
Sadly those TVs on Viva are not on anymore. Not that they showed anything significant anyways.
Regarding the Wifi I've noticed that too, but when you try to connect it just fails. Tried a few times but gave up ever since.
doesn't GO transit also have tv's built into almost everything
the VIVA buses were supposed to get wifi and the TV ads, but that part didnt get off the ground becuase they didnt have the funding for it, or something like that. Go transit has TVs in most of their bi level passenger cars btw. if you have a radio i believe the freq is FM 88.5 for those TVs
Wow....They are Putting Those TVs on CAT buses!?!?!?
What the hell?? they were just letting drivers go left and right NOW they are doing THIS!?!?!?
smh....I suppose it makes PERFECT sense....until they get stolen....
Maybe they will only leave them on a select few routes...I cant see them putting these on the State Street or Chavis Heights routes.....lol
Just FMI... WHY?!?!?!?!
look at Detroit,... we don't nee no Public transportation (don't even bother calling the "people Mover" Public transportation...)
Detroit needs good public transit with all the construction and the economy. Besides, it has perfectly good rail corridors that keep getting torn up.
Hey, I live in Raleigh. Maybe I should ride the bus.
I was thinking the same thing... the trick is finding the bus.
So true... Mass transportation is a fail in NC.
Hah, yeah, I've never ridden the bus in Raleigh. Then again, I'm in Wake Forest and routes are very limited up here. The bus always tells me to have a nice day though when it goes past me on Durant when I'm headed home. Quite polite of it.
Raleigh doies have piss poor bus services. The CAT I mean. Wolfline, of course is the best.
yeah, I've never ridden a CAT but, but I ride the Wolfline getting to classes all the time. In fact, I think the only time I've even been downtown was this summer for Downtown Live.
wooo NC people
:)
woo i have that LCDTV
I hate the fact that televisions are becoming more prevalent in public spaces. I've never seen them on a bus, but they're in grocery store checkout lines, waiting rooms, everywhere a person could conceivably get bored enough to pay attention to their nonstop advertisements tucked neatly between 1-2 minutes of useless content. Even if what they played was interesting, rather than something bland enough to be inoffensive to everyone walking by, it's intrusive. It's just another bit of meaningless noise to filter out while trying to concentrate on what you want to be doing, like reading, listening to music, or talking to someone else.
I'm sorry. My attention span wasn't long enough to read that. Now, back to watching MTV!
Buses? In Raleigh?
I was there for a week recently. I don't drive. I saw one bus the entire freakin' week. I spent it mostly trapped in my hotel as there's no way to walk anywhere.
Possibly rather than TVs they should spend some money on, I dunno, more buses?
It's true. I've lived in Raleigh my whole life (been away for college the last few years) and I only relied on the buses for one summer. The decent route map can't make up for the once an hour schedules.
And yeah, there's no way these are going in the buses that actually have riders (downtown). I saw a driveby in Chavis Heights from my middle school window...
ummm Depending on where you live there are buses that come by every 30 minutes... maybe you stayed in an area where there wasnt a route
Chris D: that's sort of the problem - any transit system which has areas where "there isn't a route" has fail written all over it. What are people who live there, are staying there, or want to go there supposed to do?
I live in Vancouver (Canada) - we have a two line (soon to be three) light rail system and a bus network that covers the entire metropolitan area, I can get anywhere on the bus. Only the most lightly used lines run as infrequently as every half hour (I've only ever been on one route that irregular).
Of course, people here still think the transit's rubbish. I should tell 'em to move to Raleigh...
Yeah more buses.
So more of them can roll around town with 2 people on them.
I see several Wolfline buses everyday on my way to class, but I guess they mostly stay around the main campus.
@Adam: I get what you are saying but hell....Raleigh is NOWHERE near as big as Charlotte is, let alone where you are from....not to mention people in Raleigh dont use Public Transportation enough for them to justify putting more routes on the map....lol
@Adam Williamson
fellow vancouverite here... while i can agree that our transit system is probably one of the better systems in north america, i still have to point out that it's still not good enough to get people out of their cars and into the buses and trains... most of the time it's because of that our buses runs behind schedule... i once had to wait 77 minutes at granville and 41st for the #10 during afternoon rush hour heading into downtown direction...
if you went to the open houses translink had about the integration of buses with the new canada line, you'll notice they're taking a step backwards... they're axing the #98 b-line and re-routing most suburban routes to start at bridgeport station instead of keeping them going into downtown... canada line will become so overcrowded, it'll make expo line at rush hour looks like nothing...
although i've gotta give it to them for finally planning to implement smart cards... most of the better systems around the world use those...
if you really want to see a good system, look to hong kong and their bus/MTR system or even japan and their bus/rail system...
What happens when some kids decides to test the fragility of the LCD and punches the screen? who is liable? the manufacturer or the experiment test attempt by the kid?
Like I mentioned above: the ones who uses public transport. I live in Montreal and every time our public transport get an improvement, guess what, so does the price for admission.
I dunno, who pays for it when some brat decides to break a window?
Cool idea
Pffft... call me when WolfLine buses have them.
WolfLine, what what!
Haha, from the looks of these comments, Darren needs to get a Raleigh Engadget meet up going sometime. Make it happen Darren!