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Making Transit Function More Like Automobiles: Flexible Services,

Making Transit Function More Like Automobiles: Flexible Services, New Technology, and Realistic Future Prospects Roger Teal Conference on Redefining, Reevaluating, and Reinventing Transit October 16, 2001. Presentation Overview. 30 Year Perspective on Public Transportation Innovation

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Making Transit Function More Like Automobiles: Flexible Services,

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  1. Making Transit Function More Like Automobiles: Flexible Services, New Technology, and Realistic Future Prospects Roger Teal Conference on Redefining, Reevaluating, and Reinventing Transit October 16, 2001

  2. Presentation Overview • 30 Year Perspective on Public Transportation Innovation • Getting Realistic about Service Innovation: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, Lessons for Going Forward • High Level Review of Public Transportation Technology • Importance of Platform Based Solutions for New Generation Transit Services • Future Prospects and Lessons Learned

  3. Tomorrow Has Arrived, But Tomorrow’s Transportation Still Hasn’t • Tomorrow’s Transportation published by HUD in 1968 • In-depth vision of near future transportation services that could handle urban America’s dispersed O-D patterns • Serious, detailed studies by leading experts of day • Covered the entire gamut of plausible innovations • Focused on technology-enabled innovations • Some services required more new technology than others

  4. Tomorrow’s Transportation • Services included in Tomorrow’s Transportation • Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) • Dual mode highways and vehicles (automated highways) • Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) • Public automobile services (car sharing service) • Bus rapid transit • Fast transit links (high speed fixed guideway service) • Flexible route transit services (route and point deviation) • Next generation transit is essentially subsumed within this vision of 1/3 century ago

  5. Getting Realistic About Transit Service Innovation: Where We’ve Been • Many DRT systems, but ambitious service objectives abandoned • Less than 20 DRT systems in U.S. have adopted fully automated vehicle control systems with mobile data communications • Less than 10 flex route services operating nationally • Route deviation service with fully automated control system in suburban VA (PRTC) has been 7 years in the making • Europe has some sophisticated flex route and DRT operations • No PRT, little bus rapid transit, progress on automated highways

  6. Getting Realistic About Transit Service Innovation: Where We Are • Technology has changed many facets of daily living in 30 years, but not our typical urban transportation experience • Why is next generation transit based on last generation innovations? • None of the innovations represented technology fixes • Technology immaturity circa 1970’s • Early experiments had difficulties, deterred later ventures • Demand for services greatly overestimated • Public sector entrepreneurialism is an oxymoron, replicable models are lacking for technology-enabled innovative services

  7. Private Sector Experience Provides Insight • Express delivery companies (e.g., FedEx) have successfully implemented technologically-advanced systems • Scores of taxi and limo companies have implemented fully automated dispatch systems with mobile data communications • Taxi industry looking at next generation standards-based solutions • Problem is no longer one of technology availability/maturity • Different outcomes reflect nature of organizations, incentive structures, and access to technical expertise and capital • Technology-based service innovation is simply too hard for most transit agencies today

  8. The Technology of Public Transportation: High Level Review • Technological components of public transportation services • Physical infrastructure--guideway/roadway, vehicles • Operating strategy • Control system • Technology based service innovation can affect any or all of these components • Flex route and DRT focus on changing the operating strategy and control system • PRT requires changes in all components, not an incremental technology

  9. Flex Route Service Concept Flex route Fixed route Stop

  10. DRT Service Concept 4 1 5 2 3 1 5 3 4 pickup 1 2 drop off 1

  11. Platform Based Solutions Offer Hope • Platforms are standard (and standards-based) technologies that provide a launch pad for specific applications, • Examples of platforms • HTTP/HTML • TCP/IP • Circuit switched telephone system, SS7 • Automobile • Television • Windows • Palm OS • GPS (global positioning system)

  12. Platform Based Solutions Offer Hope • Platforms facilitate the continual development of industrial strength applications • Platforms eliminate the need to re-invent the solution each time, reduce the system integration burden • Platforms are “pluggable”--new/improved applications can just plug in

  13. An Example: Platform Requirements for Flexible Transit Services • Complex control system distinguishes new generation flexible transit from conventional fixed route transit • Components of control system platform for flex route transit • Mobile data communications infrastructure • In-vehicle computer with GPS capability and driver interface • “Billing” hardware and software--optional • Vehicle control and messaging software--the pluggable application

  14. Platform Requirements for Flexible Transit Services • One possible platform: • Handheld computers/PDAs w/GPS as mobile computers/terminals • Standard operating system in device (Palm OS, PocketPC) • Wireless Internet for mobile communications infrastructure • CDMA (3G by mid-2002) for mobile data transmission • Vendor- and application-specific vehicle control and messaging software--the pluggable application component • Not just theoretical--Detroit area coordinated DRT operation seriously considering implementation based on similar platform

  15. Future Prospects for Automobile-Like Services • Conceptually attractive because of higher level of service to user • Economically problematic due in part to tailored service delivery • Organizationally challenging to implement with the sophisticated control system needed to provide the high level of service • Flex route transit services can play more important role in future if platform-based off-the-shelf control systems can be devised • PRT will require large investments, prototypes and operational tests to demonstrate feasibility, classic chicken and egg problem

  16. Top 5 Lessons from 30 Years of Experience with Service Innovation • Market penetration is difficult, ridership expectations must be modest • Transit agencies cannot be expected to be entrepreneurs • Technological complexity and risk must not be significantly greater than installing office computer system and applications • Platform-based technology solutions offer greatest promise for standardizing control systems for new generation services • Pre-packaged solutions with track record of success are necessary for widespread replication of innovative services

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