Last updated on August 27th, 2026 at 01:58 pm

Public buses tend to accumulate technology one box at a time. A fare system arrives from one vendor. Passenger displays come from another. Cameras, vehicle-location tools, automated announcements, ridership counters and driver communications are added over years, each with its own hardware, connections and maintenance requirements.

At the Société de transport de Trois-Rivières (STTR), that familiar pattern had produced a fragmented technology environment across 65 buses. A varied collection of routers, modems and onboard systems connected through proprietary interfaces to an aging computer-aided dispatch and automatic vehicle location system, generally known as CAD/AVL.

Then the retirement of 3G networks turned technical debt into a deadline. The modem embedded in the legacy CAD/AVL system was approaching the end of its usable life. Replacing it with another proprietary onboard computer would have preserved much of the same complexity and vendor dependence.

Instead, STTR and its partners changed the architecture.

Working with engineering consultancy CIMA+ and CAD/AVL provider Systrans, the transit agency made a ruggedized Ericsson Cradlepoint 5G router the central computing and connectivity platform on every bus. Systrans packaged its Navineo application in a Docker container and ran it directly on the router, eliminating the separate onboard CAD/AVL computer.

The result is a useful public-sector technology case study: a forced network upgrade became an opportunity to reduce hardware, separate software from proprietary equipment and give a small transit organization more control over its operating environment.

A Growing Transit System Could Not Rely on Untrustworthy Data

STTR serves approximately 149,000 residents across nearly 300 square kilometres, operating 17 routes and more than 1,000 stops. Its 2024 annual report recorded 2,415,918 urban transit trips, an increase of 14 per cent from 2023 and 44 per cent from 2022. The agency also reported an 85 per cent on-time performance rate.

At that scale, unreliable vehicle data is not simply an IT inconvenience. It affects dispatchers trying to manage service, riders waiting for accurate arrival information and the systems that depend on knowing where a bus is and whether it is on schedule.

Under STTR’s former architecture, onboard technologies were tied together through proprietary interfaces. Changes could require negotiations among vendors whose systems were interdependent, while software updates had to be installed manually on individual buses. According to Ericsson’s customer account, operations supervisors did not fully trust the data in front of them and passenger information displays could provide an incomplete account of vehicle location and status.

The 3G transition exposed the fragility of that design. The immediate problem was an obsolete modem, but the underlying problem was an architecture in which one aging component could threaten the continued operation of a critical fleet system.

Reframing the Router as an Edge-Computing Platform

The central design decision was to stop treating the router as a pipe that merely moves data between a bus and the cloud.

The Ericsson Cradlepoint R1900 combines 5G and 4G connectivity with Wi-Fi 6, Ethernet, GPS/GNSS functions, cloud management and support for applications running in containers. That last capability allowed STTR to move the Navineo CAD/AVL software onto the networking device itself.

A container packages an application and the components it needs into a standardized software unit. In this deployment, it allowed the transit application to run at the network edge, on the bus, without remaining inseparable from a dedicated proprietary computer. Once the configuration had been validated on one router, it could be reproduced across the fleet.

The model was inspired by ITxPT open-architecture principles, which promote interoperable, reusable and sustainable onboard public-transit technology. The companies have not said that the STTR deployment is formally ITxPT certified; the relevant point is the architectural direction. Hardware and software no longer have to be purchased as one immovable system.

“Our project proves that a more open, sustainable onboard architecture is achievable today,” said Julien Trépanier, Director of Planning and Development at Trois-Rivières Transit. “By reimagining the router as a central platform, we have minimized vendor lock-in and enabled integrations that are far easier to maintain. The router gives us a scalable, open foundation we control, and it’s just the first step in how we’ll evolve our fleet.”

One Hub for the Bus’s Connected Systems

Each bus now has one R1900 router acting as the central hub for passenger displays inside and outside the vehicle, fare collection, security cameras, the driver’s tablet, automated stop announcements and ridership counters. One seven-in-one antenna handles GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

The deployment did not require STTR to discard every older device. Legacy hardware that predates current networking standards connects through converter boxes, allowing it to participate in the new environment until it needs to be replaced.

Safety systems were incorporated as well. The driver’s emergency button connects directly to the router so that an alert can be sent immediately to the operations centre without a separate communications device.

This consolidation removes boxes and interfaces, but its more important effect is administrative. The fleet is managed centrally through Ericsson NetCloud Manager. STTR’s IT team can test a configuration on a limited group of buses before deploying it more widely, monitor devices remotely and update the containerized application without boarding each vehicle.

Three Weeks to Install, One Day to Update

The physical rollout was completed quickly. Ericsson says the routers were installed across 65 buses in approximately three weeks, with serial numbers, installation records and photographs captured to create a consistent inventory. The containerized software went live fleet-wide within a few months.

The more consequential time saving appears after deployment. Under the previous system, a software change required someone to visit every bus with a USB stick. The process was cumbersome enough to inhibit further development of the CAD/AVL environment. STTR can now distribute configuration changes and application updates wirelessly across the fleet within one day.

That shifts the economics of future improvements. A new function may be deployed as software rather than as another physical device, while a failed or outdated peripheral can be exchanged without reopening the architecture around it.

Turning Bus Data Into Street-Level Priority

Operational and location data now flows from the buses into cloud systems used for real-time fleet tracking and passenger information. It also supports Transit Signal Priority, or TSP, at approximately 100 intersections.

When a bus is behind schedule and carrying a heavy passenger load, the system can request additional green-light time to help it recover. The goal is not simply to make an individual bus move faster, but to reduce variation in journey times and improve the reliability of the network.

The priority system belongs to a wider STTR modernization program. In 2023, the federal government announced a contribution of approximately $2.08 million toward STTR’s signal-priority infrastructure as part of a broader $33.2-million federal investment in four Trois-Rivières transit projects. The new onboard architecture provides the trusted location and operating data needed to use that street infrastructure effectively.

A Blueprint, With Results Still to Measure

“Trois-Rivières Transit has demonstrated a visionary approach to solving the challenges that nearly every transit agency faces,” said Jason Falovo, Vice President and General Manager, Canada at Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions. “By leveraging the compute capabilities of our Ericsson Cradlepoint routers, they have created a blueprint for the future of fleet technology, one that is simpler, more reliable, and supports the day-to-day operations that help the business run. We are proud to have partnered with STTR, CIMA+, and Systrans to validate this powerful model for the entire industry.”

The case for that model rests on architectural simplification rather than on 5G speed alone. STTR reduced the number of dedicated onboard computers, gained remote control over configuration and updates, retained compatible legacy equipment and created a software platform that can evolve without requiring a new hardware box for every function.

There are still important numbers that have not been made public. The available material does not disclose total project cost, operating savings, hardware failure rates, measured changes in arrival-data accuracy or a before-and-after effect on punctuality. It therefore supports a strong implementation case, but not yet a complete return-on-investment calculation or an independently verified reliability benchmark.

For other transit agencies, the lesson is nevertheless significant. A network sunset does not have to trigger a like-for-like replacement of obsolete equipment. It can be used to reconsider which layer of the system the organization should control, which functions truly require dedicated hardware and which can be moved into software.

Trois-Rivières did not merely replace a 3G modem with a 5G router. It turned the router into an onboard platform—and used a deadline imposed by legacy infrastructure to begin dismantling the legacy architecture itself.