Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 186
186 Ground Access to Major Airports by Public Transportation
Station Helper." This page has helpful information about how to use the MARTA trains to access
the airport. In short, valuable transit information is available, which may or may not be discov-
ered in the normal act of navigation from the airport website.
How European and Asian Airport Websites Cover
Ground Access
On February 28, 2007, the most advanced program for covering airport ground access services
was inaugurated at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The program provides for
a seamless integration of trip planning for ground access services managed by the airport with
those services not managed by the airport. In concept, the new website is remarkably similar to
the experimental airport ground access module being developed for the Baltimore/Washington
International Airport, discussed at the end of this chapter.
Ground Access Information on the Amsterdam Airport Website
Passenger Information Provided by the Airport
The institutional relationship between Schiphol Airport and the national provider of multi-
modal passenger information is very similar to that in operation in San Francisco and in the New
York City region: the regional provider of multimodal systems is independent from the line oper-
ators of the transportations services and facilities. Each of the U.S. case studies reviewed the way
in which the U.S. airport covered the airport-based transportation options separately from the
more commonly available fixed-route and -schedule services included in the regional system.
From the airport manager's point of view, "contracting out" the provision of ground trans-
portation information may not be wise because the regional system may not cover all of the key
airport-based services. For example, in the JFK airport case study presented previously, the non-
stop bus from JFK airport to Grand Central Station, operated by New York Airport Express, was
not included in the dataset accessed to plan a trip from JFK airport to Grand Central Station.
Therefore, the proposed trip resulted in a transfer on a residential street, an option that would
discourage many travelers.
Like the experimental ground access module being developed for Baltimore/Washington
International Airport that will be discussed later in this chapter, the Schiphol website integrates
the database of airport-specific ground transportation services and traditional publicly available
transit services. This integration allows the trip planning module to propose all modal solutions
to the user simultaneously.
Figure 9-6 shows the results of a query about a trip from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to the town
of Delft. The private automobile (and the taxi) can make the trip in 41 minutes; public transporta-
tion can make the trip in 49 minutes. The private taxi will cost 73, while the train will cost 8.30.
The shared taxi will cost 35. In the case of The Netherlands, "public transport" will usually mean
rail, but the logic of the program could easily be applied to bus service as an alternative to rail.
These transport options have been placed on the same screen as an interactive map, which has
shown the origin (Schiphol Airport) and the destination (Delft) of the trip. The map is highly
scalable, and the user can center the screen and zoom in to find whatever detail about the trip
that is desired.
Figure 9-7 shows the screen presented when the user asked for more details about the shared-
ride taxi. In the forms that need to be filled out to reserve such a taxi, the program has already
supplied the zip code for the area traveled to (Delft). The user need only add the house and apart-
ment details. The shared-ride taxi request must be made 24 hours before the trip is undertaken.
OCR for page 187
Getting Ground Access Information to the Traveler 187
SOURCE: Amsterdam Schiphol Airport website.
Figure 9-6. Amsterdam airport's travel planner summarizes times and costs
for all modes serving the airport, including both airport and public transport
options.
SOURCE: Amsterdam Schiphol Airport website.
Figure 9-7. The Amsterdam airport website offers direct
booking of shared-ride taxi/van service to and from the airport.
