Cross-cutting Issues

Large metropolitan transit systems are facing acute financial stress due to ever increasing ADA/paratransit costs. Traditional methods generally entail the governing transit agency providing one or more subcontractors with vehicles, fuel assistance, facilities and assistance with technology, on top of a per trip cost. All of which contribute to growing budgeting problems [1].

HB Software Solutions

Montachusett Regional Transit Authority

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

Near Field Communication (NFC) is gaining popularity as a viable technology in the public transit marketplace.  The use of NFC in consumer mobile phones, transit contactless readers, and onsite “smart posters” enables fast and easy ticketing, speedy access control and the downloading of pertinent travel information.  NFC enabled phone transactions can be used today with existing contactless ticketing infrastructure.  Travellers can touch and read schedules; obtain special travel offers, retrieve bus arrival time, make emergency calls,  and be informed of destination highlights, etc.  Implementation in Transit Systems in Europe and North America is a reality, but once more this new technology is advancing faster that was expected. Currently, European transit agencies and information technology companies are testing NFC technology capabilities – in the form of pilot projects.  Telecommunications and credit card companies are taking steps to increase the utility of the mobile phone by using NFC technology as a payment mechanism.

This paper will highlight the advantages and of NFC technology. Key aspects and technical needs for any implementation will be analyzed based on experience gained from Telvent’s on-going NFC pilot project with San Sebastian´s transit network in the province of Gipuzkoa Spain.

Telvent- Trafico y Transporte

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

Proprietary formats and licensing restrictions limit individuals from sharing, viewing, or updating geographic (e.g., map) datasets and also restrict the use of these data to create innovative location-based services. Open geographic data repositories are now emerging that do not have these restrictions.  The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is a common open format for public transportation agencies’ schedules, routes, and geographic bus stop information. However, transit agencies struggle to internally maintain and update these very large official datasets. Meanwhile, OpenStreetMap.org (OSM), an online free-content “Wikipedia-like” repository of geographic data, currently has little information about U.S. public transportation, but does have a large number of users willing to freely contribute their efforts to improve geographic data for their communities. This paper presents GO_Sync, a framework and open-source software tool for synchronizing transit data between the transit agency’s official GTFS dataset and OSM.  GO_Sync connects the wealth of data from GTFS datasets with the ability of the OSM community to contribute crowd-sourced improvements to large datasets. The GO_Sync tool therefore enables public transportation agencies to upload GTFS data to OSM and retrieve crowd-sourced data back, while the online community can edit and correct the bus stop locations and amenities based on existing GTFS data. Successfully translating GTFS data into the OSM format will enable over 125 transit agencies across the U.S. to share their public-domain data with the OSM community.

University of South Florida

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

The Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) initiative was undertaken by the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) to reduce congestion using four complementary strategies: tolling, transit, telecommuting/TDM, and technology (4Ts).  The U.S. DOT selected Minnesota as an Urban Partner.  The Minnesota UPA focuses on projects to reduce congestion in the I-35W corridor and in downtown Minneapolis.  ITS technologies underlie numerous Minnesota UPA projects, including high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, a priced dynamic shoulder lane (PDSL), active traffic management, real-time transit and traffic information, and lane guidance for shoulder-running buses.  The U.S. DOT is sponsoring an evaluation of all the UPA sites.  This paper highlights the initial results from the Minnesota UPA projects.

The Texas A&M University System

Office of Travel Management, Federal Highway Administration

Urban Partnership Agreement, Metro Transit

Minnesota DOT

Minnesota Valley Transit Authority

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

This paper is an overview of one local agency’s sustained and multi-generational approach to ITS infrastructure investment and application to generate real time benefits for users of Santa Clara County’s expressways.  Attachments summarize the transformation of a barely functional and mostly ceremonial Traffic Operations Center (TOC) to a valued and fully functional service resource.  The paper credits three factors:  available local funding and aggressive pursuit of grants;  dedicated, visionary, and technically knowledgeable staff;  and helpful, industry leading vendors.

Santa Clara County Roads and Airports Department

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida