closing the loop - improving transit through crowd-sourced information
TRANSCRIPT
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!
● 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?
6
What is OneBusAway?
• What? Suite of open-source software that provides real-time bus/train/rail tracking information
• Why? Make riding public transit easier via mobile apps and enabling research that has shown 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] onebusaway.org
[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
7
Mobile Apps and More!
Android Windows PhoneiPhone
Coming soon!
Open Developer APIs - https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules/wiki
8
Seattle, WA: Original deployment
New York, NY: Adapted for the MTA (Bus Time)
Washington, DC: 2016
Atlanta, GA: 2013
Tampa Bay, FL: 2013 HART
2016 PSTA (in progress)
York, ON: 2014
Rouge Valley, OR:
2015
Where is OneBusAway?
San Joaquin, CA: In testing
San Diego, CA: 2016
Lappeenranta, Finland: In testing
Can add new agencies/regions easily - https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway/wiki/Multi-Region
9
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
10
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
11
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
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
15
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
19
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
20
Benefit – Improved D7 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
22
Current status
• Started OneBusAway limited beta at Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA, in Pinellas County) on May 3rd
– Email invitation to 2000 riders– Full PSTA rollout planned August 1st
• Research project runs through early 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/)
23
Thanks!
Funding:Florida Department of Transportation and National Center for Transit Research (NCTR)
Project Manager:Elba Lopez, FDOT District 7
Contact:Sean J. Barbeau, [email protected] 813.974.7208
25
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
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