Buses as complete archiving systems is not something that would occur to an everyday commuter, however with archives on the mind, sitting inside a bus proved to be an interesting experience as different forms of archives seemed to be everywhere. These including the ticketing system (both the new ‘Opal’ system and the old printed ticket system), the security cameras, the monitor at the front of the bus displaying this recorded footage (as well as public/government advertisements), the electronic ‘stop’ system to alert the driver you wish to alight at the next stop and the safety instructions all over windows and the walls of the bus denoting possible actions in cases of emergency. N.B If we are going through all the layers, you could also count the passengers and the many archives they personally hold, as well as the technical archives of the bus as a vehicle.

 

 

The new electronic ticketing system and automated ‘stop signal’ system in particular, can be seen as examples of modern archiving systems that are a produced as a result of new technologies and perceived social ‘needs’. Brothman (2002) discussed the trend in the archiving industry of encouraging organisations to install “techno-administrative machinery” that automatically save data/capture records. The focus is on both making things ‘easier’, as well as eliminating or reducing chances of human error. With the older printed bus ticket system, a common problem was that people –either advertantly or inadvertently – would get the wrong ticket and not pay the correct fare. With the new electronic system, this part of the processes is taken away and instead a computerized system dictates your fare.

 

Brothman (2002) says that “Self-registering evidence systems that virtually eliminate human choice and idiosyncrasy. … such systems somehow to depersonalise the capture of records and, thereby, to eliminate risky reliance on human direction."

In the case of travelling on the bus now days, the only things that passengers have to remember is to tap their Opal card when getting on and off, and to press a button before they want to alight. I.e. There is not as much chance for all that ‘human idiosyncrasy’ to occur.

 

Most people seem unperturbed by this new system, and probably enjoy the convenience of pressing a button rather than having to verbally tell the bus driver they want to get off, but what has caused some debate, is the personal travel data that can be potentially gathered as a result of the electronic bus cards.

As Dodge (2002, p.17) points out, “We appraise, arrange, describe, and make our holdings accessible to multifarious researchers for whom these holdings reflect things past”, and this an example of how a personal (yet quite public) form of archive brings about interactions with authority figures such as government, their agencies and third parties including marketers/advertisers.

 

 

Brothman, B 2002, ‘Afterglow: Conceptions of records and evidence in archival discourse’, Archival Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 311-342.

Dodge, B, 2002, 'Across the Great Divide: Archival Discourse and the (Re)presentations of the Past in Late-Modern Society', Archivaria, Vol. 53. man, B 2002, ‘Afterglow: Conceptions of records and evidence in archival discourse’, Archival Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 311-342.