И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT 13. THE TALKING BUS STOP

ELSIE (Electronic Speech Information Equipment) is an unusual talking bus stop designed in Bristol, England. I_rt_;.is intended to give announcements of the impending "'arrival of buses at a particular location.

The system contains a synthetic speech computer that actually communicates with individual buses on the street. Designed as informational aid to mass-transit travellers, the system is to be on an initial 12 to 18-month test in England.
ELSIE provides its useful information on command from a single push-button control. As soon as the command is given, the electronic voice gives the time of day, the identifying number and route of buses that serve the stop and the scheduled time when the next one is due to come.
But ELSIE also speaks up on its own, automatically informing the waiting travellers of the number and route of the next bus as it approaches the stop.
The basic technology ELSIE is based on is a sophisti­cated system. It operates as follows: radio receivers aboard each bus pick up signals that are broadcast by transmitters installed in the street. These identifying signals are then transmitted to the speech modules along the buses' route. Each module has a microprocessor memory that stores time­tables and also has a human-speech programme capable of putting together phrases from a vocabulary of 100 individ­ual words and numbers.
The designers made ELSIE's voice female-sounding to give it a friendly tone, but also included a microphone listening device that senses the noise of background traffic and raises the voice intensity as required.


TEXT 14. MAGNETIC TRACKS FOR ELECTRIC BUSES

One of the obstacles in the development of electric ve­hicles is the limited range of travel offered by battery power. An unconventional electric-bus fleet scheduled for a test run in California, USA, promises to be a step toward solving the problem for mass-transit systems.

The battery-powered buses can be recharged on the road, drawing their power from the underground cables running along the route. There is no physical contact between the bus and the cables. Instead, the electric current flowing through the cables creates a magnetic field that is picked up by conductors beneath the chassis and absorbed by neavy-duty electrical cells that power the bus.
Unlike the streetcar and the trolleybus that are fed from the overhead cables, the electromagnetically recharged bus is free to travel limited distances off the bus route using power stored in the battery cells. With magnetical­ly-recharged buses overnight layover for recharging is not needed since the buses will replenish their power while on the go.
Today, nobody is expecting this novel system to be cost-efficient yet. Developed for about % 15 mln, the system is now in a research stage. In fact, riders of the experi­mental buses are not charged a fare.