Sunrail Electronic Trip Planning Study Final Report
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SunRail Electronic Trip Planning Study Final Report March 2013 PROJECT NO. FDOT Technical Assistance PREPARED FOR Florida Department of Transportation SunRail Electronic Trip Planning Study Prepared for: Florida Department of Transportation CUTR Project Manager: Rob Gregg, Director of Transit Management & Innovation Team Prepared by: Dr. Sean Barbeau, Senior Research Associate & Justin Begley, Senior Research Associate USF Center for Urban Transportation Research Final Report March 2013 Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 2.0 Summary of Coordination Activities with other Regional Transit providers ...................... 1 2.1 August 2012 Meeting with VoTran ........................................................................ 2 2.2 August 2012 Meeting with LYNX ........................................................................... 2 3.0 Electronic Trip Planning Marketplace ................................................................................. 3 3.1 Vendor Supplied Trip Planner ................................................................................ 4 3.2 State DOT 511 Trip Planners .................................................................................. 6 3.3 The Evolution of Self-Supported Trip Planners to Third Parties and Open Data ... 8 3.4 Extending the “Open” Concept to Transit Software .............................................. 9 3.4.1 OpenTripPlanner............................................................................... 10 3.5 Creating and Disseminating GTFS Datasets ......................................................... 12 3.6 Overview of GTFS ................................................................................................. 12 3.7 Creation and Maintenance of the GTFS dataset .................................................. 13 3.7.1 In-house ............................................................................................ 13 3.7.2 Outsource ......................................................................................... 13 3.8 GTFS Data Dissemination ..................................................................................... 13 3.8.1 Benefits for Public Dissemination of Data ........................................ 13 3.8.2 Risks for Public Dissemination of Data ............................................. 14 3.9 Terms of Use for Public Data ............................................................................... 15 3.10 Dissemination Methods for Public GTFS Datasets ............................................... 15 3.11 Highlighting Transit Application Powered by GTFS Data ..................................... 16 3.12 Providing a Transit Application Programming Interface (API) to Application Developers ........................................................................................................... 16 4.0 Applications Based on GTFS .............................................................................................. 17 4.1 Mobile Applications ............................................................................................. 17 4.1.1 Google Maps ..................................................................................... 17 4.1.2 The Transit App for iPhone ............................................................... 18 4.1.3 RouteShout ....................................................................................... 18 4.1.4 Hopstop ............................................................................................ 19 4.2 Accessibility .......................................................................................................... 19 4.2.1 Sendero Group BrailleNote GPS ....................................................... 19 4.2.2 Travel Assistant Device (TAD) ........................................................... 20 4.3 Desktop & Enterprise Applications ...................................................................... 20 4.3.1 Bing Maps ......................................................................................... 20 4.3.2 MapQuest ......................................................................................... 20 4.3.3 Mapnificent ...................................................................................... 21 4.3.4 Walkscore ........................................................................................... 22 4.4 Real-time Transit Information ............................................................................. 22 SunRail Electronic Trip Planning Study Page i 4.4.1 OneBusAway ..................................................................................... 23 4.4.2 NextBus ............................................................................................. 24 4.4.3 TransLōc ............................................................................................ 24 5.0 Recommendation of Activities for SunRail Trip Planning ................................................. 24 5.1 Recommended Action Plan .................................................................................. 26 5.2 Policy & Administration ....................................................................................... 27 5.3 Data Dissemination .............................................................................................. 29 5.3 Performance Monitoring and Feedback .............................................................. 32 Endnotes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….36 SunRail Electronic Trip Planning Study Page ii Images Image 1: Ann Arbor Transit's Trapeze Trip Planner ............................................................................... 4 Image 2: Goroo Interface ...................................................................................................................... 5 Image 3: New York DOT 511 Trip Planner ............................................................................................. 6 Image 4: San Francisco 511 Real Time Transit Information .................................................................. 7 Image 5: Florida Transit 511 Links ......................................................................................................... 8 Image 6: Screenshot of OpenTripPlanner showing a transit and bike trip in Portland, Oregon (rtp.trimet.org) ...................................................................................................... 10 Image 7: Screenshot of OpenTripPlanner transit and bicycle trip preferences selector .................... 11 Image 8: Open Data Request List ........................................................................................................ 16 Image 9: The Transit App ..................................................................................................................... 18 Image 10: HopStop Web Interface ...................................................................................................... 19 Image 11: Bing Maps ........................................................................................................................... 20 Image 12: Step Based Recommendations for Trip Planning Activity .................................................. 27 Image 13: Open Data Commons Graphic ............................................................................................ 29 Image 14: PSTA Developer Webpage .................................................................................................. 30 Image 15: Trip Planning Contact List ................................................................................................... 31 Image 16: TriMet App Center .............................................................................................................. 33 Figures Figure 1: A GTFS dataset from a transit agency consists of several text files within a ZIP file ........... 12 Figure 2: An excerpt of a plain text view of a GTFS-realtime Trip Updates feed, which shows real-time estimated delays for particular trips and stops ...................................................................... 23 SunRail Electronic Trip Planning Study Page iii 1.0 Introduction Knowing accurate information about transit services is critical to users of public transportation. Since buses and trains run on a schedule set by the agency, for the transit riders to know when a bus is expected to arrive, the transit agency must share their schedule with riders. However, even if riders have access to a printed transit schedule, this does not necessarily mean they can successfully plan a trip from one location to another. In a 2004 study, approximately half of surveyed riders could not successfully plan an entire trip on a fixed-route transit system using printed information materials1. To help reduce the transit rider learning curve, many transit agencies have turned to website-based trip planners that give a traveler specific step-by-step direction on which routes to take from one location to another, based on a source and destination entered by the traveler. The use of smart phones and other mobile technology has put these tools into the hands of the riding public. Given that SunRail will attract commuters and other discretionary riders, these tools are likely to be well utilized as demonstrated in other cities with rail systems. FDOT has requested assistance in advance of the operational