Transit Times the Newsletter of the Action Committee for Transit of Montgomery County, Maryland
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Transit Times The newsletter of the Action Committee for Transit of Montgomery County, Maryland. Inside This Issue Next Meetings ACT 2019 Board Nominations...........................6 • January 8 - Annual meeting and election of officers The Nominating Committee presents their slate for Speaker: Casey Anderson, Chair, Montgomery County ACT’s 2019 year. Planning Board, speaking on “The New Suburbanism and Economic Competitiveness” Impacts of Ride-Hailing on Public Transit • February 12 - To be announced Usage........................................................................3 Lyft and Uber are having serious impacts on transit • March 12 - To be announced use, trip decisions, and traffic patterns. ACT’s monthly meetings are normally held on the second Tuesday of each month, at the Silver Spring UMCP Students Release “People of the Purple Civic Center, One Veterans Place. Meetings begin at Line” Story Map ......................................................4 7:30pm. An online resource maps out the neighborhoods and The Silver Spring Civic Center faces Fenton Street highlights along the Purple Line route. and Ellsworth Avenue. It is an eight-minute walk north from the Silver Spring Metro Station. Many bus routes Vision Zero Walk in Aspen Hill..........................5 ACT board members survey one of the most danger- can take you to and from the meeting. Ride-On #15 ous roads in Montgomery County. and #19 stop at the corner of Wayne Ave. & Fenton St.; Metrobus routes Z6 and Z8 and Ride-On routes What Will the Next Generation of Real-Time #9 and #12 stop along Colesville Road; Ride-On #16, #17, and #20 pass by on Fenton St. If coming by car, Transit Information Look Like? ..........................2 plentiful evening parking is available at the Ellsworth New features to improve the basic functionality of the Avenue garage and is (despite ACT’s advocacy against existing generation of real-time transit information are very promising and could encourage more transit use. subsidies for drivers) free after 7:00pm. ACT Staff: Cindy Snow & Kathy Jentz [email protected] / 240-308-1209 Editorial Remarks Your Transit Times editor is Quon Kwan. He wel- comes your submissions. Cutoff date for receiving We Need YOU! materials for the next publication is February 1. Send Join us in working for more and better transit. Whether your materials to Quon at: [email protected] or call you want to help us leaflet at Metro and MARC sta- him at: (h) 301-460-7454 tions, work for pedestrian and bicycle safety or testify at public hearings, or volunteer in some other way— we would love to work with you. Contact ACT Staff at [email protected]. Transit Times, vol. 32, no. 2, December 2018 PAGE 1 What Will the Next Generation • Incorporation of auxiliary transportation services available at an upcoming stop, such as bike sharing, of Real-Time Transit taxis, ferries, and on-demand transportation services. Information Look Like? The second set of advanced, new features will appear By Quon Kwan in signage at rail platforms and bus stops: The next generation of real-time transit information • Electronic or digital signs [basically a light-emitting will have many advanced, new features. The first set diode (LED)] will be replaced with liquid crystal dis- of features deal with basic functionality, the second plays (LCD) or similar display technology. LCD signs set with shelters at rail platforms or bus stops, the are in color and enable more flexible and user-friendly third with on-board vehicle electronic signage, and graphics in color and multiple languages (whereas the fourth with mobile applications and web sites. The LED is limited to monochromatic text and a single fifth enables the transit agency to collect and analyze language). data to improve service and planning operations. Sixth and last provides the transit agency with the capability • Where there is an unpowered shelter and no elec- to obtain customer feedback on service performance tronic or digital signage, the shelter would have to be and operational reliability. connected to power before electronic or digital signage can be installed. Such unpowered shelters could be Now let’s explore the first set of advanced, new fea- powered by solar panels with re-chargeable batteries tures to improve the basic functionality of the exist- if not situated in a location where sunlight is obscured ing generation of real-time transit information. These by trees, buildings, or other objects. come from upgrading the existing the transit vehicle arrival time forecasting algorithm to an intelligent The third set of features deal with on-board vehicle predictions software to increase accuracy: electronic signage. In the U.S., the current on-board transit vehicle electronic signage is limited to display- • The details are too technical to delve into, but they ing and announcing the next stop or next few stops involve heuristics (machine learning) and more vari- with pre-recorded messages. In Europe, on-board ables, e.g., transit signal priority, congestion, rider- signage notifies customers of an approaching trans- ship loads, and weather, into predicting transit vehicle fer point with information to help them with the “last arrival times. mile” of their trip. The problem in the U.S. is that • These predictions can work on either fixed time- while connecting services may appear physically on a point schedules, headway-based schedules, special transit system map, there is no information on whether event/real-time route adjustments and demand-respon- all transit routes operate at all times. In the U.S., on- sive routing. board vehicle electronic signage will be: • Elimination of current “ghost bus” predictions in which the existing system shows a prediction for a • Upgraded to tell customers whether a connecting bus vehicle that never arrives. or train is just a few minutes away or not operating at • Incorporation of multi-modal or inter-agency transfer all, allowing them to assess options and avoid a non- connections. existent connection. • Incorporation of real-time information on re-routes • Integrated with Computer-Aided Dispatch, Auto- and delays. matic Vehicle Location, and radio systems to commu- • Incorporation of predictions of overcrowding on nicate timely messages about re-routing, delays, and transit vehicles with automatic passenger counter sen- cancellations. This will enable customers to be con- sors. tinually apprised on service status and let them decide • Suggestions of alternative parallel bus routes within whether to abandon transit. walking distance when there are long wait times and • Replaced with liquid crystal displays (LCD) signs service delays [feasible only in certain, intensely tran- adding advantages of graphics previously discussed. sit-served areas, such as downtown Washington, DC]. • Incorporation of messages, such as future service and The fourth set of the next generation of real-time tran- fare changes, elevator outage alerts in stationary signs, sit information features deals with mobile applications on-board signage, and mobile devices. and web sites. The problem is that in many areas, cus- PAGE 2 Transit Times, vol. 32, no. 2, December 2018 tomers must use multiple mobile applications (apps) • Customer tolerances for crowding before seeking a for transit information, and even the most popular apps non-transit alternative. do not have all the necessary features customers need • Impact of service changes on ridership at a route and do not convey transit information in a variety of level and network level. formats—desktop web site, tablet, and mobile app— • Customer origin-destination travel patterns and of through a “one-stop shop.” Future mobile applications trip linking with other transit service providers or for customers will offer: modes. • Latent demand for service (frequency of customer • Mobile ticketing, requests for receiving arrival predictions when service • Multi-language capability, is sparse and ridership is low). • Transit trip planning, • Customer feedback on service and operational reli- • A link to predictions of arrival time, ability issues. • Ability to follow along while enroute to a destina- tion, • Sustainable transportation options at any stop (in- Impacts of Ride-Hailing on cluding bike share, car share, taxis, and transportation Public Transit Usage network companies), By Quon Kwan • Rating of their travel experience, providing feed- back, and The Institute of Transportation Studies at the Universi- • Requests relating to their recent travel experience on ty of California at Davis published a study UCD-ITS- transit. RR-17-07, “Disruptive Transportation: The Adoption, Utilization, and Impacts of Ride-Hailing in the U.S.” The fifth set of new features enables the transit agency The study provides early insight on the behavior im- to collect and analyze data for improving service and pacts of ride-hailing services. It covers three primary planning operations: topics: adoption of ride-hailing, vehicle ownership and • On-time performance statistics by route, route seg- driving, and most important, ride-hailing impacts on ment, time of day, and day of week. public transit usage. • Variations in travel time by route, time period of a Ride-hailing services offered by transportation net- day, and day of week. work companies (TNCs), such as Uber, Lyft, and • Reliability of real-time transit vehicle arrival predic- Zipcar, have experienced significant growth since they tions. were first introduced in 2009. Adoption of such servic- • Real-time