Improving Public Transportation Technology Implementations and Anticipating Emerging Technologies (2007)

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69 This chapter summarizes the major conclusions and rec- ommendations of this study. The conclusions are organized into two major sections. The first section presents conclu- sions related to improving transit agency implementation and operation of advanced technologies, including anticipa- tion of high-potential emerging technologies. The second section presents recommendations for disseminating the re- sults of this study and for associated follow-up actions neces- sary to ensure that the recommended agency practices gener- ate their full benefit. 4.1 Improving Technology Implementations Six major conclusions of this study (not listed in order of importance) are the following: 1. There is an opportunity to move past the struggles in de- ploying technology that have limited technology benefits for the transit industry. While advanced technology has been applied to public transit for more than 20 years, it has been done with varying degrees of success. Over the same period of time, several guidance documents have provided information regarding the best practices associated with technology deployment. Nonetheless, agencies continue to have difficulties with technology deployment. These diffi- culties are not so much with the technology itself, as they are with associated deployment issues (e.g., organizational change). As a result of these continuing difficulties, transit agencies generally are not getting the full benefits of de- ployed technologies. 2. Commitment, vision, organizational change, a cham- pion, and a realistic business case are necessities for suc- cessful deployment of technology. Those agencies that have been successful in deploying technology have made a significant commitment to the technology, but perhaps more importantly, to these four requirements: • Establishing and communicating a vision for the organi- zation that describes how technology will help achieve the organization’s goals and objectives. Agency leadership (CEO/GM and board) should contribute to the develop- ment of the vision and should thoroughly understand and support it. That support should include policies and resource allocations necessary to realize the vision. Devel- opment of the vision should also meaningfully involve the range of agency stakeholders (e.g., riders/users, tax- payers, policy makers, employees, and media) and ade- quately reflect their needs and perspectives. Accompa- nying the vision should be a clear, sequential plan for achieving the vision through specific investments and supporting actions. • Having a champion throughout the planning, procure- ment, and deployment of the technology who is pas- sionate about the vision, can articulate the vision in common language, and can discuss the vision anywhere at any time. • Recognizing the need for and embracing organizational change, including understanding the stages of change, being proactive in addressing and mitigating the reac- tions of staff at each stage, empowering staff, and utiliz- ing outside assistance when necessary. • Understanding the long-term business case for, and implications of, procuring and operating the technol- ogy. This should include a realistic cost-benefit or ROI analysis, even if it is only qualitative, and a formal, post-deployment evaluation of observed benefits. Not only are these elements necessary for successful tech- nology implementation, some of them, such as a having a vision and a champion, describe fundamental conditions, prerequisites, which must be present before an agency can follow many recommended best practices. 3. Transit needs to follow the example of successful private- sector technology adopters by using more rigorous planning and implementation processes. Using EAP and C H A P T E R 4 Conclusions

SE is essential for successfully deploying technology sys- tems. Until the U.S. transit industry fully embraces these important planning and design techniques, technology performance will remain far below its potential. Transit can follow the examples provided by other industries that utilize EAP and SE and draw analogies to the transit busi- ness as they strive for success. Utilizing these techniques will require more funding than is usually required for technology deployment, so efforts to obtain funding for technology will need to be more innovative. 4. An agency must realistically assess its capability to make a technology deployment fully successful. The decision to pursue technology deployment should take into considera- tion whether the aforementioned prerequisites—those important pre-existing conditions, attributes, and capabil- ities that are necessary for an agency to effectively apply the practices recommended in this report—are in place. Too many times, external factors, such as politics and board of directors’ interests, have forced an agency to rush into a project without having the appropriate prerequisites and resources. An agency must be realistic about what it can and cannot do regarding technology planning, de- sign, procurement, deployment, and ongoing operation and maintenance. If an agency determines that its internal capabilities are lacking, it can make meaningful progress by first establishing its “basic skills” for successful tech- nology implementation. 5. Emerging technologies have the potential to help address the important issues that are facing transit in the next 10 to 20 years. These important issues include the needs of an aging society and rising fuel prices. However, agencies will need to understand the effects of new technologies on their organizations before planning how they will address future issues. Technologies do not generate benefits unless an agency integrates the technology into its operations and makes necessary changes to the organization to fully em- brace and utilize the technology. This study revealed that many agencies that have adopted technology systems ex- pend available resources on maintaining, updating, and integrating those systems and lack the resources necessary to systematically scan emerging technologies. Thus, dis- semination of information regarding new technologies, specifically regarding the benefits that can be derived from deploying them, will be a necessity and must be done in a way that minimizes agency research efforts. Finally, given the great potential of emerging technologies, it is vital that the transit industry strive to better anticipate and more quickly adopt these technologies. In focusing on agencies’ many challenges with current technologies, the signifi- cance of emerging technologies cannot be ignored. 6. Adoption of the recommendations of this study is depend- ent on more aggressive and effective dissemination ap- proaches than have been used in the past. Although this study places far greater emphasis on some state-of-the-art and essential practices than has been done in the past, some of the practices recommended here have been identified previously. In order for the findings of this study to have their intended impact—stimulating significant improve- ments in transit technology implementation—an enhanced approach to dissemination is required. Recommendations for dissemination are described in Section 4.2. 4.2 Disseminating Study Findings A three-pronged model is recommended for the dissemi- nation of the findings of this study. The three prongs of the dissemination/follow-up model are the following: 1. Conduct traditional TCRP knowledge transfer; 2. Incorporate several new or enhanced knowledge transfer methods; and 3. Carry out, in parallel, several additional activities that focus on impacting transit policy rather than knowledge transfer per se. Each of the three prongs of the dissemination/follow-up model are described below. 4.2.1 Traditional TCRP Knowledge Transfer The first prong of the dissemination model, traditional TCRP knowledge transfer, is useful and appropriate, but will need to be supplemented with other dissemination methods and activities to fully meet the challenges identified by this study. Traditional TCRP knowledge transfer activities include the following: • Publish this report as well as brochures, fact sheets, pam- phlets, or similar material with condensed versions of the study results. • Incorporate the findings of this report into existing train- ing courses and develop new courses, if necessary, to ad- dress all the needs identified in this study (e.g., SE, EAP and Change Management). • Present the results of this report at conferences and meet- ings, including the TRB Annual Meeting; the ITS America Annual Conference; and several APTA meetings and con- ferences, including the Annual Meeting, the Bus and Para- transit Conference, the Bus Rapid Transit Conference, the Transit Board Members Seminar and Board Support Em- ployee Development Workshop, the TransITECH Confer- ence, and the Transit CEOs Seminar (formerly General Managers Seminar). • Incorporate the findings of this report into other planned workshops and forums and consider new workshops or forums dedicated to the findings of this report. 70

71 4.2.2 New/Enhanced Knowledge Transfer The second prong of the strategy for dissemination of results and other follow-up actions in part represents enhancements or refinements in the way some traditional activities are carried out (see Section 4.2.1), and in part will represent new activities incorporating new methods. The overall objective of this second prong is to take steps to enhance the penetration and ultimate value of the study findings among the practitioner community. This objective responds to two major challenges. The first challenge is that most practitioners face an enor- mously crowded and somewhat chaotic information environ- ment and are, essentially, in “information overload.” With tools like the Internet, the rapid proliferation of industry and topic-specific subscription e-mail newsletters, and the new RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, the problem for most practitioners is no longer an absence of information per se, but inadequate time to scan it, identify what’s useful, and then remember they have it. Simply publishing a report and mak- ing a few conference presentations may have been a sufficient way to disseminate findings 10 years ago, but a different strat- egy is needed now. The other challenge is that past attempts to address many of the same problems this study addresses have been inadequate, despite making good information available to the transit com- munity. As elaborated in the discussion of prerequisites, a main reason for that prior failure is that the recommended practices aren’t easy to put into practice for most agencies. Agencies with organizational climates that do not fully sup- port technology investment are not places where an IT, plan- ning, or operations manager can simply start using EAP and SE techniques. Likewise, agencies that are profoundly resource- challenged simply cannot afford to use many of those costly best practices even when the up-front investment is returned many times over. The way that these challenges must be addressed is to more effectively target and craft the dissemination of study find- ings. Effective dissemination of study findings entails using the 3 Ms: the right (uniquely responsive and therefore effec- tive) message, messenger, and mechanisms. The message will be unique and responsive if it stresses that (1) agencies must understand and utilize techniques like SE in a truly meaningful way (not in a superficial way simply to comply with the FTA Policy); (2) agencies must develop the necessary prerequisites before implementing the practices, and (3) “the prerequisite problem” has been recognized and efforts are being made (e.g. 3rd prong) to address it. The messenger will be unique and responsive insofar as he or she will be drawn from the ranks of transit agency leadership, past or present, will possess all of the qualities necessary to get the attention of fellow CEOs and GMs, and most importantly, will be seen as credible and authoritative. The messenger’s credibility will derive from (1) many years of experience in transit, (2) high visibility among peers, (3) success and inno- vation with technology, and (4) appreciation of the challenges faced by less successful agencies and the different circum- stances of agencies and the effects of these differing circum- stances on technology implementation. In addition to being viewed as highly credible and authoritative by the target audi- ence of transit agency CEOs and GMs, the messenger must be articulate and persuasive and must strongly believe in the mes- sage and have a personal zeal for communicating it. In short, the messenger must be an “evangelist”—a trusted, capable, and highly motivated insider. The mechanisms for dissemination of the study findings will be unique and responsive insofar as they utilize the most recent technologies and forums as well as emerging ones. Candidate technologies include subscription e-mails, RSS feeds, web sem- inars, video conferencing, e-Zines, podcasts, and wiki-enabled Internet collaboration. (A wiki is “a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring.”127) One of the most promising mechanisms that should be uti- lized to disseminate and encourage adoption of the findings of this report is the Applied Transit Technology Center that is in development and being championed by the UTA. The devel- opment of The Applied Transit Technology Center (described in more detail in Section 2.3) is based on the recognition that agencies need to pool their efforts to address technology chal- lenges, and the Center features activities and approaches con- sistent with the findings of this study. The Center’s theme of agencies helping each other under the direction of their CEOs or GMs is entirely consistent with the assertion here that the “messenger” must come from within the ranks of transit agency leaders. Also, the Center proposes a whole host of knowledge and technology transfer mechanisms of the type that are needed to effectively communicate the results of this study, including new publications, online materials, forums, workshops, roundtables, and web seminars. The Center’s in- tention to have a strong online component dovetails nicely with the notion of creating a specialized, “one-stop-shop” web portal devoted to transit technology best practices and re- sources that was suggested at the transit leader focus group convened for this study. 4.2.3 Parallel, Additional Activities in the Political/Policy Arena The third prong of the dissemination/follow-up model fo- cuses exclusively on follow-up actions. The first two prongs of the strategy are expected to be effective in disseminating 127 Wikipedia, Nov. 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki.

findings and encouraging their adoption (especially if pur- sued in partnership with entities like the UTA Applied Tran- sit Technology Center). However, the actions described in the first two prongs of the dissemination/follow-up model are not likely, in and of themselves, to solve “the prerequisite problem” faced by so many agencies. Solutions to that prob- lem must be pursued through political and policy-making channels. The objective of activities in the political, policy- making arena is to help make the case to U.S. DOT leadership and elected officials that 1. In order to play its role in meeting the current transporta- tion challenges that will intensify in the future, transit will have to improve. 2. Effective utilization of technology is a primary means of improving transit. 3. Technology cannot be effectively exploited by transit agencies without the proper support and resources. The nature of this support should be carefully aligned with each agency’s needs. Deployment funding will be most effective when it is restricted to those agencies with demon- strated prerequisites and a commitment to EAP, change management, ROI analysis, SE, and post-deployment eval- uation. For agencies lacking the prerequisites and commit- ments to change management, post-deployment evaluation, and the other proven and needed techniques, resources pro- vided in the form of technical assistance to help establish the prerequisites and the other commitments will be the most useful. Activities in this third prong could be undertaken by FTA in partnership with transit industry associations like APTA. 72