Also included in the report is a ranking of the top 20 cities in America with the highest transit ridership in order of their transit savings. According to APTA, the report demonstrates how an individual in a 2-person household can save money and reduce their carbon footprint by using public transportation.

Click here to read more about how public transit can save you money.

 GreenTRIP funding can be used for a variety of purchases including bus arrival information systems, “next stop” notification systems, wayside signs, and other intelligent transportation system components. Click here for more information about the GreenTRIP program and how to get started on your application.

1. Were there drawbacks to the manual processes you were using before the ITS system?

A major drawback was man power. The only tools we had to manage routes were communicating with our drivers over the radio, randomly following them, or reviewing their manifest after they turned it in the next day. We had no efficient means of monitoring our drivers in real-time. The major draw back to the radio system was the overabundance of information that was being communicated between drivers and the office. We had drivers and the office talking over each other during busy times of the day; which made it difficult to ensure all communication concerning pick-ups, drop-offs, and route changes were being received by our staff. Implementing the Mentor Rangers solved this problem. Now dispatchers can shoot drivers the information and they can confirm they got it instantly. We don’t have to wonder if they got it, we know they got it. We can now manipulate and move trips around the driver’s manifest without having to involve the drivers, which is nice! It seems we’ve always had a few drivers that would avoid volunteering to assist others if there was a route delay and we’ve always had a few that would over extend themselves trying to assist others with their routes which could cause them to fall behind. Now the decision is made in our dispatch office by looking at our entire operation in real-time. This global, real-time view allows dispatch to evenly disperse trips to drivers throughout the day which improves route efficiency and customer satisfaction.

2. Have you seen a change in how dispatchers and drivers communicate?

Everything is more efficient. For example, before when dispatchers called a trip out to a driver they would announce, “The driver with John Doe, please pick him up at the hospital,” and hope that that driver heard it. That driver may have been on a bathroom break, assisting a client, or unable to hear the call because of other conversation occurring on the radio system. Dispatch would listen for the driver to respond with a 10-4, but they had no real way of knowing if the driver they intended to receive the radio transmission got it or if the 10-4 they heard was in response to another radio communication that could not be heard by dispatch. Now dispatchers send trips directly to the Ranger and the drivers acknowledge they received the trip instantly, which is a real time saver and a real frustration killer.

3. Has the new system affected customer service?

That aspect of the system has been wonderful. Before we would have to put the clients on hold and ask the drivers for an ETA. Now, with the Rangers, dispatchers can use the AVL feature to actually pull up a map of the service area and look to see where the vehicle is. The dispatcher can then say with accuracy,”they are two miles from your house,” or wherever they may be.

4. Where have you seen the most changes in your operation?

Improved communication and decision making. You don’t wonder who’s doing what or where they are. You can look and see where every vehicle is, who’s on board, and how fast they are going. Communication in this business is everything, if we ever get even a minor breakdown in it everything goes to pieces. The Rangers have definitely improved communication and route efficiency. We now have all of the information that used to take days to compile right in front of us in real-time, which equates to the following: better information to make better decisions that enable increased efficiency and, ultimately, improved customer satisfaction.

As transportation affects people’s lives every day, the open transit data debate continues to be a relevant issue. Streetfilms has put together a great, comprehensive short video exploring some of the small-scale and wider benefits of opening transit data.

The video shows how the Massachusetts DOT and New York MTA are giving their riders better information and making their transit experience more convenient, all at no cost for the agencies.

 Streetfilms touches on a benefit of opening transit data that may not be obvious: how open data can help make streets safer. Also up for discussion in the video are steps which can be taken that will allow individuals and private companies to deliver additional services to the public as a result of opening transit data, and the role of government in this space.

 This short film does a good job of highlighting many of the most tangible benefits of opening transit data, as well as demonstrating how open transit data relates to and influences larger social issues.

Unlike consumer electronics, because fleet-based technologies are not available for public consumption, they have a much longer shelf-life and retain their value well beyond their everyday counterparts.  But mobile computers benefit from improving hardware just as much as the home market and an article on Field Technologies Online.com outlines this. 

As Brian Albright writes, “Systems now have a greater capability to collect telemetry and other data from the vehicle, and thanks to increased bandwidth from wireless carriers, in-vehicle computer systems with 3G capabilities can also support richer applications.”

For more information on how improving hardware will provide new functionalities for in-vehicle mobile computers, view the entire article here.

Click here to read about Mentor Ranger’s versatile functionalities.

1. It seems that as a transit agency you really value technology and invest in it. Why is having a good, responsive transportation system so important to your city?

In days gone by, we have been at the forefront of technology, and we were one of the first transit agencies in Canada to have an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Our previous systems were getting a little elderly so we were at the point where we had to reinvest in our existing system. We found over the years we could reduce a lot of our costs with technology. By adding ITS technology we now have a much bigger focus on the kind of information we can provide to our customers.

2. What features of the ITS system are your dispatchers most excited about?

One of the things they want to do is send our operational notices via text message. Currently, they write them out and post them on the board in the garage, but the problem is that not all of our drivers come into the garage so they never see them. This way, we’ll be able to send our notices out in real-time using text messaging so everyone will be able to read them.

3. What has been the impact of adding a voice annunciator to your transit system?

Certainly, the public likes it. With this technology in place we were able to go to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and say that we have a system, and this is how it works to announce every bus stop. We were able to give a report of how often each driver was on task. We were able to demonstrate to the OHRC that our system is up and it’s working.

4. How much resistance to the system was there from the drivers?

When the system went in the drivers by and large were all for it. They felt that this was being put in to help them, and without it they would be required to announce all the stops themselves. The fact that we made the investment to put in a system that would automatically announce all the bus stops, our drivers really saw this as a benefit to them.

5. What does the future hold for your organization?

I would say that our customers are looking for more information that is easier to access. We’ve been looking at adding wayside signs for our terminals. Customers are going to want real-time information from our IVR system and our website in an easy-to-handle format.

• Quickest Trip / Safest Trip / Fewest Transfers
• Maximum Walk (incrementally from a tenth of a mile to 30 miles)
• Wheelchair accessibility (Yes / No)
• Travel by Transit / Bus and Train / Bus Only / Train Only / Walk Only / Bicycle Only / Bicycle and Transit

In addition, the Open Trip Planner also reads information from the U.S. Geological Survey Data Set and can tell travelers the ascent/descent of their planned trip, a feature that will be particularly handy for cyclists. 

But perhaps the best feature of all is that Trimet’s new trip planner is completely open source, meaning that agencies from around the world will be able to use it, and keep improving it, for free. And 3^rd party developers will be able to use it for developing any type of smartphone app they can think up. 

To read BikePortland.org’s article on the announcement of the trip planner, click here. 

The TriMet Open Trip Planner test site (still in beta) can be found here.