Bus trouble in the Offenbach district: food banks refuse to work

Constant trouble with the passenger information displays at the bus stops of the Offenbach roundabout company (KVG). Because of a software problem, they have been black in Rodgau for months.

Rodgau – bus passengers know the problem: The display boards for passenger information at the stops do not work. They have been black since March. So there are no more indications of when which bus will soon be leaving the stop. The answer to this question is important, for example in the smooth interaction between S-Bahn and bus. Passengers have been reliant on other sources of information for months now.

There are twelve locations for the display across the district on the S 1, S 2, S 8, S 9 – mostly at the train stations. In Rodgau, therefore, five. All out of service. The operator of the systems is the roundabout company. There one blames a software problem for the permanent breakdown. And this is how it came about: Special technology in the buses of the KVG allows the forecast data (which bus leaves where and when?) To be sent from the bus to the network-wide data hub of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund. This data center then feeds the displays at the stops with the information from the buses for the passengers. The operator of the data hub made changes to the software in March 2021. “Suddenly things stayed black,” says the KVG employee responsible for the product, describing the consequences. On July 19th, the problem was supposed to be solved by a correction of the software. That failed with a crash. “We have now been put off for an indefinite period of time”, regrets the KVG employee, who does not want to be named in the newspaper.

The display system along the S1 is 16 years old. After 15 years of operation, the financial support from the State of Hesse expired. The KVG have invested large sums in maintenance over the past few years, as there have always been problems. Now one is faced with the question of whether the model still has a future in principle.