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

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7This report summarizes the results of TCRP Project J-9/ Task 12, “New and Emerging Information Technologies for Public Transportation.” Other tasks within TCRP Project J-9, “e-Transit: Electronic Business Strategies for Public Trans- portation,” have considered issues such as the use of the Inter- net for training and certification and utilization of technol- ogy in parts and inventory management. This study focuses on summarizing the value of technologies currently utilized in public transportation, synthesizing recommendations for how transit agencies can best benefit from the application of advanced technologies, and identifying five emerging tech- nologies that hold promise for transit agencies. The intended audience for this study includes individual public transporta- tion agencies and the public transportation industry in gen- eral, including FTA and industry associations such as APTA. This chapter provides an overview of the research study and identifies the scope of this report. Chapters 2 and 3 pre- sent the study findings. Findings related to current technolo- gies, including their value and how best to realize that value, are presented in Chapter 2. Findings related to future tech- nologies with high potential for use in public transportation are presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 includes a summary and interpretation of findings. The successful completion of this study is a result of the very high degree of coordination and cooperation between the consultant research team, the TCRP program manager, and the TCRP project panel. Throughout this report, the term “project team” is used to denote these partners. 1.1 Project Overview 1.1.1 Background Our society is vastly different from what it was just a few decades ago. The pervasiveness of technology has increased access to information and changed the way people work, communicate, and travel. The trend toward globalization has had a dramatic effect, and the challenge to use technology to its fullest is ever present. As a result, many transit agencies face decisions about which technologies are most appropri- ate for their use. The Internet and personal information and communica- tion devices as well as on-board vehicle and passenger tech- nologies have revolutionized the way services are delivered and organizations are structured in many industries. Expec- tations have changed as customers have become accustomed to obtaining new information and services on a real-time basis. Behind the scenes, electronic business processes, real-time vehicle data, and wireless technologies are starting to change the ways that organizations operate and conduct business. Oppor- tunities to lower costs and improve efficiencies have, in some key examples, changed relationships among transit agencies, their suppliers, and customers. Portals for government-to- government and business-to-government marketplaces have started to be offered through diverse organizations. Some tran- sit agencies are offering or are preparing to offer customized itinerary planning and fare-media purchasing as well as real- time passenger information over the Internet. However, for a variety of reasons, many transit agencies have been slow to adopt new technologies. These reasons include lack of information about new technologies and how they might be adapted to transit needs; lack of funding; fear of public failure in the adoption of new technology and the attendant criticism; lack of knowledge about and expertise in the benefits of technology investments and how to sell these benefits, particularly where benefits are not clearly quan- tifiable; and impediments posed by agencies’ organizational structures, which tend to be hierarchical and command-and- control in nature. The declining costs of communications, data storage, and data retrieval are accelerating the opportunities for both tran- sit agencies and their customers to take advantage of the bene- fits of technology. Transit managers, planners, and transporta- tion technology professionals—all of whom must weigh the C H A P T E R 1 Introduction and Research Approach

costs, benefits, and risks of changing the way services are delivered—face challenges to their knowledge bases and skills. There is a need to understand the ground rules for choosing and sequencing investments in technologies, processes, and people to reduce costs and increase productivity. TCRP’s e-Transit research program seeks to identify, de- velop, and promote research to maximize the benefits of e-commerce and other new technology applications for pub- lic transportation and mobility management. The e-Transit research program seeks to develop a road map for transit professionals to understand immediate as well as short- and long-term products and strategies, with an emphasis on quick delivery. 1.1.2 Study Objectives The objectives of this research are the following: 1. Provide those responsible for public transportation with the best thinking available on technologies and how they might be deployed in the service of public transportation. 2. Provide transit agencies with specific, proven techniques and “best practices” for overcoming the significant obsta- cles they face in taking full advantage of technologies. 3. Provide information on emerging technologies, identi- fying five technologies that hold the most promise for public transportation and mobility. (In this research, mobility is defined as the ability and knowledge to travel from one location to another using a multimodal ap- proach, with one of the modes being a public transporta- tion service.) For purposes of this research, current technologies are understood to be those currently in use in a transportation application, including applications in Asia and Europe; emerg- ing technologies are those that could be implemented in trans- portation applications within the next 3 to 10 years. 1.1.3 Research Tasks This study has two major parts. The first part focuses on providing transit agencies with practical, proven techniques for surmounting technology-related challenges. This first part includes documentation of current technologies and their benefits, identification of methods that have been used to build business cases for investing in those technologies, doc- umentation of the obstacles to technology exploitation, and, most importantly, identification of best practices to address those obstacles. The second part of the study focuses on pro- viding transit agencies with a few “promising technologies to watch” to facilitate their consideration of the uses of such technologies. Midway through this study, TCRP reduced the scope of the emerging technologies portion in order to provide the resources necessary for a thorough treatment of best prac- tices, including greater investigation of techniques such as Enterprise Architecture Planning and Change Management. That reduction in scope eliminated consideration of the more distant emerging technologies—those expected to be avail- able to transit between 11 and 20 years from today (the analysis included in this report considers technologies up to 10 years out)—and hypothetical case studies describing how the high potential emerging technologies might be im- plemented by various types of agencies. 1.2 Approach 1.2.1 Interviews Interviews were conducted with technology decision mak- ers from eight U.S. public transportation agencies of varying sizes, seven international public transportation agencies and research organizations, and the United Parcel Service (UPS). In identifying interviewees, the objective was to include only those organizations that have been successful in adopting ad- vanced technologies. This was critical because understanding how to overcome obstacles to technology adoption was a key objective of the interviews. Another objective in selecting in- terview subjects was to include agencies of varying sizes. In- ternational organizations and a commercial organization were included to bring in perspectives from outside the U.S. transportation agency environment. Working with these cri- teria, a list of interview subjects was developed based on the knowledge of the research team and with input from the TCRP panel members. Most of the interviews were between 60 and 90 minutes in duration and were completed between February and May 2005. Table 1 lists the organizations and individuals interviewed. Interview discussions centered on the following four topics: 1. The next steps in the organization’s information tech- nology program (i.e., their current design and imple- mentation focus). 2. The organizational structure and processes that have been successfully utilized to identify, plan, implement, and op- erate advanced technologies, including keys to overcom- ing obstacles. 3. Promising developing technologies currently being tracked and investigated. 4. Trends and factors that are anticipated to significantly impact future operations, including utilization of tech- nology (e.g., changes in costs or funding and demographic changes). 8

All of the international interviews were conducted in per- son; all others were conducted by phone. In the case of the transportation agencies, interviewees were generally individ- uals with job titles such as general manager (GM), who had a high-level perspective on technology-related issues and an appreciation for overarching issues such as policy, organiza- tional culture, etc. In several cases, additional agency person- nel with firsthand technology planning and implementation experience also participated. 1.2.2 Literature Review A literature review was conducted to identify the value of current technologies, the obstacles associated with deploy- ing technologies, methods of overcoming these obstacles, and the best practices associated with deploying the tech- nologies. Information was obtained from a variety of re- sources, including TCRP reports, U.S. DOT and other intel- ligent transportation systems (ITS) evaluation reports, the ITS Cost-Benefit Database, and general information tech- nology literature such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review. TCRP reports were 9 Organization Interviewees U.S. Public Transportation Agencies Ann Arbor Transportation Authority Greg Cook, Executive Director Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority Kirk Dand, General Manager (contracted) Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) Mark Nawrath, Director of Project Management (nolonger with the agency) Ride On (Montgomery County, MD) Alfie Steele, Communications Manager OUTREACH (San Jose, CA) Kathryn Heatley, President & Chief ExecutiveOfficer King County Metro (Washington State) Kevin Desmond, General Manager TriMet (Portland, OR) Ken Turner, Manager of Operations Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) (Washington, D.C.) Edward Thomas, Assistant General Manager, Department of Planning and Information Technologies International Public Transportation Agencies and Research Organizations Gothenburg (Sweden) Transit Agency Anders Kabjorn, Director of Marketing (retired) Chalmers Institute of Technology (Gothenburg) Stig Franzen, Professor Transport Direct (London) Nick Illsley, Project Director United Kingdom (UK) Department of Transport Chris Gibbard, Development Manager INRETS (Paris) Guy Bourgeis, Director INRETS (former Director ofStrategies for RATP) Transport for London Peter Hendy, Managing Director of Surface Transport, and Robert Kiley, Commissioner (part of the interview) Hong Kong Transit Tony Yeung, Manager of Operations Commercial Package Delivery Service United Parcel Service (UPS) Donna Barrett, Technology Public RelationsManager Table 1. Organizations and individuals interviewed. 1 C. L. Schweiger, TCRP Synthesis 48: Real-Time Bus Arrival Information Systems (Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2003), http://trb.org/publications/tcrp/tcrp_syn_48.pdf; Multisystems, Inc., TCRP Report 92: Strategies for Improved Traveler Information (Washington D.C.: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2003), http://gulliver. trb.org/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_92fm.pdf. 2 Cambridge Systematics Inc., Matthew A. Coogan, Multisystems Inc., Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and TransManagement Inc., TCRP Report 58: New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation Organizations—Task 5 Report: Opening the Door to Fundamental Change (Washington, D.C.: Transporta- tion Research Board, National Research Council, 2000), http://gulliver.trb.org/ publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_58.pdf; R. G. Stanley, Matthew A. Coogan, M. P. Bolton, S. Campbell, and R. Sparrow, TCRP Report 97: Emerging New Paradigms: A Guide to Fundamental Change in Local Public Transportation Organizations (Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2003), http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_97.pdf; Cambridge Systematics Inc., TCRP Report 53: New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation Organizations—Task 1 Report: Forces and Factors That Require Consideration of New Paradigms (Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board, National Re- search Council, 1999), http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_53.pdf. consulted to identify the issues associated with traveler information systems.1 The TCRP reports that covered the “new paradigms” research were reviewed to identify the changes that could help transit agencies in overcoming obsta- cles in technology implementation.2

Several ITS deployment evaluation reports, such as the Metropolitan Model Deployment Initiative (MMDI) reports and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) evaluation report, were consulted to study the cus- tomer perception of transit ITS.3 These reports provided an overview of customer acceptance of transit technology. An earlier FTA report was also consulted to study customer ac- ceptance of existing transit technologies.4 The ITS Cost- Benefit Report and Database were reviewed to study the fi- nancial impacts of transit ITS.5 Several other resources were consulted to identify emerging technologies that may have the potential to improve transit service, operations, management, customer service, and information. Finally, technical papers from several of the most recent ITS America annual meetings and ITS World Congress conferences were reviewed to determine the most recent research and develop- ment, and actual efforts related to advancements in transit technology. 1.2.3 Focus Group A day-long facilitated focus group was conducted with sev- eral transit agency chief CEOs, GMs, and information tech- nology (IT) and Planning Department Managers at the Beck- man Center in Irvine, California, on August 28, 2006. The purpose of the focus group was to validate and expand upon draft findings related to the value of technologies, methods used to evaluate and demonstrate the rationale for deploying technologies, and best practices for overcoming obstacles to taking full advantage of technologies. The objective in identifying focus group participants was to keep the size of the group small enough to allow significant interaction among all participants while at the same time sampling a range of opinion from agencies in different geo- graphic regions and of different sizes. The focus was on sen- ior transit leadership because, based on the preliminary find- ings of Tasks 1 through 4 of TCRP Project J-9/Task 12, the discussion of best practices was expected to center primarily on institutional issues. Members of the TCRP project panel were instrumental in the identification and recruitment of focus group participants. In addition to members of the re- search team, focus group participants included the following: • Ron Barnes, GM, Valley Metro East Valley Operations, Veolia Transportation. • John Inglish, GM, Utah Transit Authority (UTA). • T. J. Ross, GM, Pace Suburban Bus Service. • Michael Setzer, CEO/GM, Southwest Ohio Regional Tran- sit Authority. • Edward Thomas, Assistant GM, Washington Metropoli- tan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). • Gwen Chisholm-Smith, TCRP Senior Program Officer. • Paul Toliver, Former Transit Director, Seattle Metro, and Director, King County Department of Transportation, King County, Washington; currently President of New Age Industries, LLC (Panel Chair). • Robin Cody, Chief Information Officer and Manager of the Information Technology Department, Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) (Panel Member). • Peter Anderson, Chief Information Officer, City of Fort Worth (Panel Member). Each focus group participant was provided a read-ahead package in advance of the focus group summarizing the pur- pose and objectives of the project and the preliminary find- ings related to obstacles to technology deployment. The focus group consisted of four main activities. First, Mr. Toliver, Mr. Cody, and Mr. Thomas gave short presentations high- lighting their experiences and lessons learned in implement- ing advanced technologies. The second activity was a facili- tated group discussion of best practices—what works and what doesn’t—in areas ranging from institutional to techni- cal. The third activity was a facilitated group discussion of how the results of this study can benefit transit agencies, in- cluding consideration of the concept of “prerequisites”— basic conditions and capabilities needed in order to success- fully apply more specific, technical best practices—and how to disseminate the results of this study. A summary of the focus group is presented in Appendix A. 10 3 J. Lappin, Advanced Traveler Information Service (ATIS): What Do ATIS Cus- tomers Want? (Washington, D.C.: Intelligent Transportations Systems Joint Pro- gram Office [ITS JPO], U.S. DOT, January 2000), www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/ JPODOCS/REPTS_TE/12284.pdf; S. Radin, B. Sen, and J. Lappin, Advanced Traveler Information Service (ATIS): Private Sector Perceptions and Public Sector Activities (Washington, D.C.: ITS JPO, U.S. DOT, January 2000), www. itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/JPODOCS/REPTS_TE/12283.pdf; J. Lappin, Advanced Traveler Information Service (ATIS): Who are ATIS Customers? (Washington, D.C.: ITS JPO, U.S. DOT, January 2000), www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/JPODOCS/ REPTS_TE/12285.pdf; TranSystems Corporation, Development of a Continuing Process for Monitoring Performance Data on Transit-Related ITS Investments, final report of a study conducted for the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (Arlington, VA: Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, 2003), www.thinkoutsidethecar.org/pdfs/December%202003%20Monitor%20 Performance%20its%20Investments.pdf 4 Battelle Memorial Institute and Multisystems Inc., Customer Preferences for Tran- sit ATIS: Research Report, FTA-OH-26-7015-2003.1 (Washington, D.C.: FTA, U.S. DOT, August 8, 2003), http://www.its.dot.gov/transit_dev/atis/ATIS.pdf. 5 Mitretek Systems, Inc., Intelligent Transportation Systems Benefits and Costs: 2003 Update (Washington, D.C.: FHWA, U.S. DOT, May 2003), www.its.dot.gov/ jpodocs/repts_te/13772.html.