A workshop seeking new paradigms for public transportation conducted by TCRP identified timely traveller information as a key feature of a successful transit system. Changing demographics and technological progress are raising expectations. Today’s transportation consumers must manage their time effectively, and significant uncertainty associated with waiting for a bus or train is unacceptable to most people. Providing information to give travellers greater control over their time is a paradigm shift. Also, many consumers are unaware of all of their public transportation options. The use of information-based technologies can expand traveller choices and facilitate delivery of more convenient services, potentially increasing transit ridership. Under TCRP Project A-20A(2), research was undertaken by Multisystems, Inc., to identify strategies for using information technology to assist individual mobility related decision making. The focus of the research was on how public transit providers can most effectively provide transit traveller information, specifically, on how public transit agencies can take maximum advantage of new and emerging technologies to better inform travellers about mobility choices. To achieve the project objective, the researchers collected, reviewed, and updated information on the state of the art of transit traveller information systems. Information was collected on current efforts by transit systems, both domestic and international, to improve their traveller information systems. The researchers also obtained information on the experience of other industries in providing customer information. Specifically, information was collected from the airlines and other industries that provide real-time customer information via telephone, cellular telephone, alphanumeric pager, personal digital assistant, and e-mail; package delivery companies that provide customer information via the Internet; companies that provide location-based content services or portable information using technologies such as global-positioning-system mobile phones; and companies that provide real-time itineraries, including directions, on mobile devices. The researchers then examined how advanced traveller information systems for transit can be part of community-based information networks. Examples of such systems implemented in Europe were reviewed. Finally, the researchers examined how transit systems in the United States can learn from the experiences of (1) public transit agencies in other countries, particularly in Western Europe, that have embraced and provide real-time customer information using a variety of dissemination media; and (2) other industries that provide customer information using innovative techniques. Potential new directions for transit traveller information were then developed. (Author/Publisher)
Samenvatting