Harry Rosehill

The London iBus System Turns 10 - Can You Remember Life Without It?

For more transport chat, join our popular Facebook group, Londonist Roundel Ramblings.

Photo: Transport for London

iBus. Sounds a bit like an iPhone parody doesn't it?

However, it's nothing of the sort. It's the system on board buses that provides the audiovisual announcements — the ones that announce which stop the bus is about to arrive at — and it's been on TfL services for 10 years.

The service is a boon to anyone with visual or hearing impairments, alerting them to the bus' location. It also provides open data to third party navigation apps, such as Citymapper, to let them know how far away the next bus is. It also allows service controllers at bus garages to see the real-time progress of buses, and can manage the whole route more effectively.

Photo: Transport for London

The system very briefly earned the ire of most Londoners in early 2018, when a new announcement was introduced: "Please hold on, the bus is about to move." Apart from that one misstep, we think the system is universally well regarded by people — unless you hate it, in which case explain why in the comments below.

We're regularly reminded of how useful the system is when we travel abroad. Plenty of countries that don't have a comparable system have us nervously checking our smartphone's GPS throughout a journey. It's so much simpler on a London bus.

Transport for All Chair, Alan Benson said: