Postbus has recently started using ‘smart glasses’ with ‘assisted reality’ features for technical bus acceptance testing. Using innovative applications such as ‘smart glasses’ means that we are no longer simply an established traditional company, but have taken steps to become a modern, forward-looking innovation driver on the Austrian bus market.
Using ‘smart glass’ saves time and increases efficiency
Newly purchased buses shall be inspected upon delivery and an acceptance report shall be drawn up. In the past, this was done analogously using pre-printed lists and protocols in paper format. In addition to numerous forms, extra equipment such as torches and cameras were required to carry out acceptance testing. After testing was completed, it took several hours for the acceptance report to be prepared and for all defects to be recorded manually. Between 240 and 280 new buses are purchased by Postbus each year and are approved by the technical inspectors. Now, the use of ‘smart glasses’ means that a significant amount of time is saved and efficiency levels have increased.
End to End digitalisation
Thanks to the use of ‘smart glasses’, all applications can be controlled by voice command. Defects can easily be recorded by automatic speech recognition and images or videos can be taken at any time during the acceptance process. The audio recordings are digitally converted from spoken language to written text for the report in real-time with "speech to text". After the technical inspection is finished, a complete acceptance report is automatically generated and exported. The entire inspection is carried out using intelligent ‘smart glass’ application. This was developed in collaboration with digitisation and software experts from Nagarro, an international IT company that already has extensive experience with ‘assisted reality’ solutions. It was important to us that the benefits were noticeable right away as soon as this project was implemented. In the future, Postbus will also use the high-tech glasses for other purposes.
