Center for Urban Transportation Research | University of South Florida

Closing the Loop - Improving Transit through Crowd-sourced Information

Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.Center for Urban Transportation Research

University of South Florida

Challenges

● Florida has highest bike/pedestrian fatality rate per capita in the nation - two straight years

● Need to identify ways to make multimodal travel safero Listen to public!o Especially transit, bike, and walk travelers

● Issues that affect travel are cross-jurisdictionalo Difficult for the public to understand who should manage

specific infrastructure (street, light, sidewalk, bike lane, etc.)● How can we improve issue reporting from the public to

government?

Cross-jurisdictional Challenges

I want to report a broken

bench

At bus stop?

In city limits?

Bench color?

Contact transit agency

Contact nonprofit

Contact county

Contact city

Yes

No

Gray

Green

No

Yes

…sand in bike lane

Contact DOT?

Contact local municipality?

…broken sidewalk

Which one?

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24 incorporated municipalities

Slide credit – Pinellas County

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Why real-time transit info?

• Real-time transit information has many benefits– Shorter perceived wait time [1]

– Shorter actual wait time [1]

– Lowers learning curve for new riders [2]

– Increased ridership[3][7]

– Increased feeling of safety (e.g., at night) [5][6]

• Riders prefer accessing real-time transit info via mobile apps [1]

[1] Kari Edison Watkins, Brian Ferris, Alan Borning, G. Scott Rutherford, and David Layton (2011), "Where Is My Bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Vol. 45 pp. 839-848.[2] C. Cluett, S. Bregman, and J. Richman (2003). "Customer Preferences for Transit ATIS," Federal Transit Administration. Available at http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/jpodocs/repts_te/13935/13935.pdf#sthash.jwn5Oltr.dpuf[3] Lei Tang and Piyushimita Thakuriah (2012), "Ridership effects of real-time bus information system: A case study in the City of Chicago," Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Vol. 22 pp. 146-161.[4] Aaron Steinfeld and John Zimmerman, "Interviews with transit riders in San Francisco and Seattle," ed, 2010.[5] Brian Ferris, Kari Watkins, and Alan Borning (2010), "OneBusAway: results from providing real-time arrival information for public transit," in Proceedings of the 28th International CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, pp. 1807-1816. [6] A. Gooze, K. Watkins, and A. Borning (2013), "Benefits of Real-Time Information and the Impacts of Data Accuracy on the Rider Experience," in Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 13, 2013. [7] Brakewood, Macfarlane and Watkins (2015). The Impact of Real-Time Information on Bus Ridership in New York City. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Volume 53, pp. 59-7

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger

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What is OneBusAway?• What? Suite of tools that provides real-time

bus/train tracking information– Open-source software project

• Freely available to set up at your agency

– Free to riders– Maintained by board, consortium of organizations

• Universities• Transit Agencies• Vendors/Consultants

• Why? Make riding public transit easier by providing good information in usable formats– Research can evaluate the impacts– No software licensing fees for agencies– Shared across regions = shared costs!! Real-time arrival info

http://onebusaway.org

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Mobile Apps and More!

Android Windows PhoneiPhone

Open Developer APIs – https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki

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Where is OneBusAway?

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Seattle WA: Original deployment 2008

New York, NY: Adapted for the MTA (Bus Time)

Washington, DC: Launched Feb. 2016

Atlanta, GA: Launched Fall 2013

Tampa, FL: Launched

Summer 2013

York, CA: Launched 2015

Bear Transit (UC Berkeley), San Joaquin, CA: Beta

http://onebusaway.org

San Diego, CA: Launched Jan. 2016

Rogue Valley, OR: Launched Sept. 2015

Lappeenranta , Finland: Beta

Sroda Wielkopolska, Poland: Launched May 2016

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Lots of users!

• Around 230,000 30-day active users on iOS and Android only– Users that have used the app in the last 30 days– 5 min 41 sec avg. session duration

• Over 2,000 OneBusAway Alexa users• Many website, SMS, and Phone (IVR) users per region• Users keep using the app after installing– Around 30% user retention rate on Android, vs. less than

10% for most apps

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• “Excellent program saves time in waiting for the buses.” • “I think the OneBusAway app is a life saver. Being able to know exactly when

the bus is coming is helpful.”• “…Has really helped me catch busses that aren't originating at the Marion

Transit Center. Often when catching busses along their route, I felt like it was the "wild, wild, west" with times, busses not showing, etc. OneBusAway helped make everything much more sensible and relaxing!!”

• “Please keep One Bus Away going in Tampa. Thank you.”• “This is too useful to not be deployed soon. I have coworkers asking me how

I'm so accurate on scheduling, and when I explain it, they are eagerly awaiting the service rollout so they can have it.”

Direct quotes from OneBusAway testersBold & underline added for emphasis

Riders love it!

4.3 of 5 stars (7510 reviews)

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OneBusAway Challenges - Submitting issues• Users are willing to send

agencies feedback (which is good!)– Potential source of

information for improving multimodal travel

• …but multiple reporting screens confuse users– What issues can be reported

isn’t clear to user– Single “Contact Us” email

contact point per region– Many users don’t discover

structured stop/trip reporting

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OneBusAway Challenges – Managing issues

• Single regional email contact point is difficult to manage– Especially if multiple agencies

• Structured stop/trip reports only accessible to OneBusAway admins

• No pictures/reporting/ analytics features

• Can’t communicate with user via structured stop/trip reports

• Supports only data issues, not infrastructure issues

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How to address challenges?

• OneBusAway users are willing to report problems that affect multimodal travel

• How can we improve OneBusAway issue reporting to best harness this information?– Make it easier for users to submit issues– Make it easier for agencies to manage issues

Open311 – Issue Reporting Protocol Standard

Open311.org

Pinellas County & City of St. Pete

• Using SeeClickFix.com for issue reporting / management

• SeeClickFix has an Open311 API

Solution - Leverage Open311 in OneBusAway

• Send feedback via Open311 protocol to ANY system

• Enables discovery of issue categories per geographic location

Open311

Open311-compliant

system

Request issue categories for a location

Send issue to server w/ contact info

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Open311 integration

• App can submit issues directly to any Open311 server (e.g., SeeClickFix) for any area– Include picture attachment

• Categories and follow-up questions defined by local municipalities, county, DOT

• Transit agency, city, county, or DOT is notified based on issue category and geographic bounds

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Improved feedback experience

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Reporting stop/infrastructure issues

Categories for THIS LOCATION retrieved via Open311

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Reporting stop/infrastructure issues

Sub-categories also controlled via Open311 server

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OneBusAway automatically adds trip details

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Benefits – Automated geographic issue routing

Before

Citizens have to individually contact each local government office

After

Issue reports are automatically assigned to FDOT, Pinellas County, and others based on GIS data

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Benefit – Improved agency workflowBefore

• Government entities manage issue reports via email

After

• Issue reports are managed via centralized issue reporting tool (SeeClickFix)

• Issues are automatically assigned to proper department based on issue category

• Issue categories defined by government office

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Benefit – Advanced analytics tools

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Current status

• OneBusAway in beta at Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA, in Pinellas County)– PSTA tentatively planning marketing push March 2017

• Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) adopted SeeClickFix in beta in December, launched Jan 30th, 2017

• Research project runs through mid 2017– Will be monitoring reported issues and agencies’ experiences

• Any OneBusAway region can use their own Open311 server to receive and manage issues– Vendor options (http://wiki.open311.org/GeoReport_v2/Support/)– Open-source options (

http://wiki.open311.org/GeoReport_v2/Resources/)

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Data so far, almost 1 month in…

Arrival times/schedules - 89% (158 reports)

HART Issue Reports by Category

Arrival times/schedules Complaint Calls WiFi on bus isn't working Safety concernLocation is wrong Route/trip is missing Location doesn't match map Positive commentsVandalism/graffiti Benches Shelters CSR Concern LogIncorrect/missing stop ID Internal Report Trash at bus stop Environmental Inquiry/Issue

(n=177)

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A user report…

• OneBusAway user:– “The utility box at southwest

corner of North Florida Ave and Kirby Street has been open for days. Represents hazard to neighborhood.”

• HART:– “Frontier Communications has

been contacted to remedy the issue.”

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Expansion of OneBusAway in greater Tampa Bay Area• Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART)

– Launched 2013• Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA)

– Soft launch now – Planned full launch March 2017• TBARTA sponsoring project to bring other regional agencies onboard:

– Hernando County - The Bus– Polk County - Citrus Connection– Manatee County Area Transit - MCAT– Pasco County Public Transportation – PCPT– Sarasota County Area Transit – SCAT– Citrus County Transit – CCT

• Other regions to come on-board as well

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Integration of more modes/services

• Integration with other regional services– Link to Flamingo Fares regional app– USF Bull Runner

• Links with other multi-modal services:

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Thanks!

Funding:Florida Department of Transportation and National Center for Transit Research (NCTR)

Project Manager:Elba Lopez, FDOT District 7

@sjbarbeau

linkedin.com/in/seanbarbeauSean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.barbeau@cutr.usf.edu813.974.7208

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Contact Agency Customer Service

• Shows list of agencies and phone/email/web contact for each (if available)

• Requires fields in GTFS agency.txt for each agency – agency_phone, agency_email, agency_url

Hillsborough Area Regional Transit

Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority

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Reporting stop/infrastructure issues

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Background – OneBusAway Tampa● Started as research pilot by USF● Launched as HART’s customer-facing

real-time mobile apps in Aug. 2013● Current USF focus:

Adding Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA)

Adding USF Bull Runner Improving feedback process from riders

• Funded via National Center for Transit Research and FDOT Central Office

tampa.onebusaway.org

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OBA – Android app

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Service Alerts / Surveys