To bring a bus online, turn the bus's ignition key to the accessories position. It is not necessary to start the engine. Wait until the lights on the attendant come on, which should only take a few seconds. At this point you may remove the key. The attendant's lights should remain on, and the bus will be brought online.
So, what should you do if a bus is unexpectedly offline and the directions above do not bring it online? Try the following. After performing each step, check the dashboard to see if the bus has come online.
- Refresh your web browser. It could be that the bus is in fact online but your web browser is stuck and is showing old data.
- The shutdown timer may have run its course. In this case, simply key on the bus as described above. If this happens often, see here to increase the shutdown timer.
- A low battery shutdown may have been triggered, to protect the bus's batteries. Check the battery voltage on the bus, and look at the Bus Battery Health Chart on the dashboard. In this case, keying on the bus again would be a waste of time because the low voltage will quickly trigger another shutdown. You will need to charge the batteries and address whatever caused them to be in that state.
- When you key on the bus as described above, the attendant's lights should come on and stay on. If they do not, that means that the attendant is not receiving power from the bus. So:
- Unplug the power plug from the back of the attendant. Confirm all pins are clean and straight, and plug it back in. There should be a click that you can hear and feel as you plug it back in.
- If that does not light up the attendant, unplug the power plug again. Confirm that the voltage in the power plug is 12 volts.
- If the attendant has a red button, press it. This is a reset button, which often fixes this problem.
- If the attendant's lights are on yet the dashboard reports that the bus is offline, that often means that the attendant itself is working but is unable to communicate with our servers. So:
- Move the bus outside near other buses that are online.
- Disconnect the external antenna's Wi-Fi coax cable from the attendant. Doing this forces the attendant to use a cellular connection rather than your bus lot's Wi-Fi. If the attendant comes online after doing this, the problem is with your bus lot Wi-Fi; see Bus Lot Wireless Network Installation Guidelines for information on fixing that.
If the above does not help, or if the bus is offline yet the engine is on, contact Transportant support at
support@transportant.com so that we can look in to the problem for you. Please mention each step above that you tried, and what you observed when you did so, so that we do not waste your time suggesting things that you have already tried.
Like a computer or a cell phone, Transportant's equipment on a bus needs to be powered on and connected to a network to be fully useful. Transportant staff cannot bring a bus online; that can only be done by someone with physical access to the bus as described above.
Transportant's equipment is turned on when the the bus's engine is started or when the ignition key is turned to the accessory position. It then connects to a network: your bus lot's Wi-Fi, or failing that the cellular network. It uses the network to connect to Transportant's servers. All of this is automatic. Once connected to Transportant's servers, the bus will show as online in the dashboard.
When the engine is turned off, a countdown timer on the attendant keeps it on for a specified period to give ample time to review and offload video. By default that is three hours but this can be changed as needed.
In this state (the attendant is on but the engine is off), Transportant's equipment is drawing power from the bus's batteries. The power draw is not great and will not harm charged and healthy batteries, but to be safe, the attendant periodically checks the voltage. If it drops below 12.04 volts, the attendant shuts down to protect your batteries. This low voltage shutdown overrides the normal shutdown timer.