County Transit Buses with UTac channel?

[RedPenguin]

County Transit Buses with UTAC channel?

My local bus company in Cambria County, PA, is registered MO for a 2W of 453.7125/458.7125.

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseFreqSum.jsp?licKey=1233675

Why would a bus company need UTAC channels?

Would a bus company maybe have to do mutual aid or something? Would they have just used the frequencies before UTACs came in to effect?

 

[DaveNF2G]

Buses are a resource for evacuations. They can also be used for rehab at fire scenes. It is very useful for them to be able to intercommunicate with public safety organizations while deployed.

 

[N4DES]

When our buses were on a non-countywide 800 conventional system we had crossband (800 to UHF) repeaters in the bus and each driver had a UHF portable for times that they might of been away from the bus (lunch break, potty call, etc.).

Worked well as long as we didn't have more than 1 bus in the same location at a time..lol

Just an fyi...can't say is if they are using this low power UHF channels in this configuration.

 

[RedPenguin]

Alright I see

Buses are a resource for evacuations. They can also be used for rehab at fire scenes. It is very useful for them to be able to intercommunicate with public safety organizations while deployed.

That is what I thought but wasn't sure if probably this bus company just happened to use that frequency but was not really meant to be a UTAC config, but I guess only the bus company themselves will really know.

 

[rcvmo]

"Buses are a resource for evacuations. They can also be used for rehab at fire scenes."

You better believe it.
Most public transit systems are all part or members of the Local Emergency Planning Commission. Thus, to public safety channels, we are entitled.
rcvmo

 

[n2mdk]

Don't know if they would get used in your area for this type of thing, but here in Ames the bus system is pretty extensive and a lot of the time the drivers spot problems on the roads before anyone else does. This goes for weather related problems, traffic accidents, problem drivers (owi) etc. Here they call their dispatchers who then call the Ames central public safety dispatch.

 

[RedPenguin]

Odd

The odd part about it is, that the frequencies seem to be assigned to the Rural Division not the Urban Division of our local buses.

It's our Urban Division that normally helps out in evacuations and provides buses for firefighters to warm up in and way more.

The Rural Division, which is way smaller but does cover a wider area, doesn't seem to really have the resources and the command system like the Urban Division does.

Also, the Rural Division has horrible radio service, many times drivers cannot even communicate with one another or even Dispatch. Sometimes the radios seem to turn into one-way radios, where the driver can hear Dispatch but can't talk back to them.

So being that the Urban Division would probably use a public safety interop frequency way more than the Rural ever would, it just surprises me. Plus the police and fire in my area already have CamTran Urban programmed in to their radios.

Though maybe since Rural's radios are so bad, maybe they need those UTacs to switch over to them and communicate, because for some reason the police and fire don't seem to have Rural programmed in their radios, so maybe they use this UTac to talk to them.

Though none of the driver's radios are programmed for this UTac pair, so I guess the dispatcher would I guess have to act as a relay between public safety and the buses.

EDIT: I took a look at the FCC site again and appearntly, the bus company has been registered for this frequency pair since 98.