Blacksburg Transit to add detection system, new buses

BLACKSBURG, Va. – The town of Blacksburg's transit system will be adding some new features, including two new buses. 

Blacksburg Transit is working to keep the community safe through a new detection system that aims to prevent incidents between its buses and pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles. 

A grant from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation will fund a pilot program for a detection system inside five Blacksburg Transit buses. 

"I haven't seen any dangerous incidents, but I feel like it could always happen," said Virginia Tech junior Ivan Doynov.

Doynov uses Blacksburg Transit to get to all of his classes, and he's glad that the town is taking precautions.

"The buses do have to get through campus a lot of times, so it's good to have the safety systems in place, especially when the roads are a bit more narrow sometimes," said Doynov.

The grant comes at a time when the town has seen a steady ridership increase thanks to the Hokie community.

Last year, Blacksburg transit saw 4 million passengers.

"With Virginia Tech located here, we have a lot of pedestrian traffic and a lot of cyclists as well, in addition to normal vehicular traffic," said Steve Ross, Blacksburg deputy town manager. "So trying to have all three of those on the road and also our buses -- anything we can do to have a safer environment for everyone is in the best interest of each of us." 

The results of this pilot project will determine where the future of this could go.

"The next steps are that we are looking at the different systems," said Ross. "We will do a request proposal process to seek proposals that are out there."

The proposal will include what kind of detection system the town will use and when they'll implement it.