The Role of ITS in Communicating with Transit Riders Carol Schweiger, Assistant Vice President ITS America 2007 Annual Meeting June 5, 2007

1 Presentation Outline  Introduction  Literature Review  Characteristics of Communicating with Riders  Communication Costs  Effectiveness of Rider Communication Techniques  Project Results, Conclusions and Recommendations

2 Introduction - Rider Communication  Affects access to public transport services  Affects customer perception  Can build ridership  Can maintain ridership  Contributes to “high quality” service. Examples: Real-time arrival/departure information On-board information and amenities (e.g., wireless Internet) Automated fare payment

3 Introduction – Communication Dimensions  Who and where riders are located  Content, format and accessibility of communication  Communication timing and frequency  Communication dissemination media and access  Capital and operations and maintenance costs associated with communication

4 Literature Review  Customer needs for communication and access to information well understood  Confirms challenge to measure the effectiveness of communication – no one overall measure of effectiveness  Difference between U.S., and European and Asian experience in using electronic media to disseminate communication Public transit embraced more in Europe and Asia than in U.S. Technology use more prevalent in Europe and Asia than in U.S.

5 Characteristics of Communicating with Riders  33 responding agencies  Most prevalent communication types: Operational information Route and schedule information Proposed service changes Public meeting information Security Safety General information Transit in the community  Wide variation in content and frequency of communication

6 Content and Frequency of Communication  Operational information: Real-time - next vehicle arrival/departure time Periodic/one-time basis - regarding detours and delays One-time basis - trip and/or connection time  General information most prevalent of all communications  Safety and security information on periodic basis - reminders about suspicious activities and packages  Dissemination of safety/security information not being done by as many agencies as those disseminating general or real-time information  Trend toward providing certain operational information in real-time, while continuing to provide general information on periodic basis

7 Use of Technology  Internet (website) (22%)  Kiosk (5%)  or page (5%)  Electronic sign at transit stop/station (3%)  On-board electronic sign (1%)  Mobile telephone (1%)  Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-enabled device (1%)  Wireless device (e.g., PDA, iPod) (1%)

8 Dissemination Media From Federal Transit Administration’s “Customer Preferences for Transit ATIS”

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10 Methods Used to Determine Content  Operational and general information: Complaint information (30 and 26 agencies, respectively) Consulting with riders (25 and 20 agencies, respectively) No external input (21 and 17 agencies, respectively) Based on another agency’s communication (13 and 16 agencies, respectively)

11 Communications Costs  Few agencies understand and can report costs  Costs reported for: Websites Trip itinerary planning systems Interactive voice response (IVR) systems  Wide variations in costs. Examples: Capital costs for website range from $4,200 to $550,000 Capital costs of trip itinerary planning systems range from $25,000 to $600,000 Capital costs of IVR systems range from $85,000 to $16,000,000

12 Communications Effectiveness  Conduct surveys to determine if reached market  Consult with advisory committee to determine accessibility  Use of surveys and rider feedback to determine understandability  Rider feedback through focus groups, citizen advocacy groups and surveys to determine timeliness  Employee monitoring and feedback to determine timeliness  Determining whether expected changes due to the communication actually occurred : Ridership statistics Volume of calls to customer information Number of complaints Hits on the website

13 Project Results  Limited identification of most effective way to communicate with riders. Need to Differentiate among types of communications and riders Identify point at which communication occurs in travel chain Source: Ministry of Transport and Communications, Finland

14 Project Results (continued)  Consistency most important: Consistency among sources of information within an agency Consistency of information provided to the customer  Simplifying information makes it more effective.* Examples: Bus stop timetables Accessing information on vehicles arriving/departing at a particular stop  *Balance between simplifying information and customizing it difficult to achieve  Major challenges: Reaching specific audience and in affordable/effective way Need for multiple media and multiple languages Timeliness of information

15 Key Conclusions  Need to account for variety of factors: Stage of the travel chain Demographic characteristics of recipients Ownership of and ability to use technology  Establish process for testing, and monitoring accuracy and timeliness  Select appropriate dissemination media based on content of communication and rider demographics  Develop “information strategy”  Ensure internal processes/resources in-place for delivering consistent quality of information  Maintaining or increasing ridership should not be only metric that determines effectiveness

16 For Future Study  Determining specific measures of effectiveness by type of communication  “Model” could be used by agencies to determine most effective dissemination media  Much more information required about capital, and operations and maintenance costs  More information regarding communicating safety and security should be provided to agencies  More in-depth information regarding a communication project from concept-to-deployment should be made available to agencies