iv Moving America on Transit : Innovation in Real-time Transit Information October 2015 Final Report

Real-time transit information offers many benefits to transit riders, including reduced wait times and increased customer satisfaction. However, offering real-time transit services has been challenging for many transit agencies. While mobile applications (apps) have emerged as a preferred dissemination method for real-time information, it is typically cost-prohibitive for transit agencies to fund custom development of native mobile apps for all popular smartphone platforms. Third-party developers can offer services if an agency openly shares real-time data, but these individuals are volunteers whose priorities and deadlines may not be the same as the agency’s. As a result, few cities have full app portfolios that cover all smartphone platforms. This paper presents the OneBusAway multi-region project, a collaborative effort that is enabling the rapid expansion of native mobile transit apps to new cities. OneBusAway is an open-source transit information system that has provided real-time transit services to the Puget Sound (Washington) area since 2008. The new OneBusAway multi-region feature expands the coverage of the existing Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 apps for OneBusAway to new cities, including Tampa and Atlanta. The multi-region system architecture, collaborative design and development process, and lessons learned from this ground-breaking project are discussed. The fundamental shift from proprietary to open-source software in the transit industry that has made this type of project possible also is examined. Introduction Real-time transit information has many benefits for transit riders. Past research has shown that transit riders who have access to real-time information perceive their wait time to be OneBusAway Multi-Region – Rapidly Expanding Mobile Transit Apps to New Cities Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2014 15 around 30 percent shorter than riders who do not have access to real-time information (Watkins et al. 2011). Additionally, real-time information users save almost two minutes in actual wait time, which has a very high disutility value and can be used to perform other tasks. Four Federal Transit Administration (FTA) workshops, held in Seattle (Washington), Salt Lake City (Utah), Columbus (Ohio), and Providence/Kingston (Rhode Island), concluded that real-time information attracts new riders who are otherwise reluctant to start using transit (Cluett et al. 2003). Similarly, a study in Chicago found modest ridership gains from real-time information even prior to wide usage of smart phones (Tang and Thakuriah 2012). Interviews with transit riders in San Francisco and Seattle in 2010 revealed that when the real-time information system was down, some riders elected not to ride the bus (Steinfeld and Zimmerman 2010). Riders also can use the information to adjust their own use of the transit system, e.g., by taking a different less-crowded bus, which can benefit other riders as well (Zimmerman et al. 2011). Other benefits identified in surveys include increased walking (i.e., public health benefits) and, for some riders, increased feelings of safety while waiting, particularly at night (Ferris et al. 2010; Gooze et al. 2013). With the number of smartphone users among transit riders being similar to those in the general population, providing app-based real-time information could be a major benefit to a large proportion of riders (Windmiller et al. 2014). However, offering real-time information services to transit riders has significant challenges. The cost for a transit agency to implement both Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technologies and information dissemination technologies (e.g., electronic signs, mobile phone apps) is not trivial, ranging from approximately $800,000 for a 17-vehicle fleet to $24 million for a 1,900-vehicle fleet (Parker 2008), especially in the public sector where budgets are under pressure. This estimate does not include the cost of mobile apps, which also is significant. The development cost for a business app that includes real-time information can be upwards of $150,000 (Lauvray 2011); understandably, agencies have cited development costs as being the primary barrier for offering “official” transit agency mobile apps (Wong et al. 2013). Another issue is the multiplicity of smartphone platforms. Agencies are reluctant to support all major platforms due to costs, yet choosing which one or two platforms to support also can be difficult. Since riders have shown a preference for accessing real-time information via mobile apps (versus other methods such as text-messages or websites [Watkins et al. 2011]), agencies must find another cost-effective solution for providing mobile apps to riders. One strategy for increasing the number of mobile transit apps at a transit agency is for the agency to share static (i.e., schedule) and real-time transit information with the general public as “open data”(Barbeau 2013; Wong et al. 2013). Third-party developers (individuals not associated with the transit agency) can then independently develop and release mobile apps to the general public. This strategy has successfully produced a number of third-party transit apps at several agencies in the U.S., including Bay Area Regional Transit (BART) in San Francisco (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 2012), TriMet in Portland (TriMet 2012), Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York (Authority 2012), and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) (Massashusetts Bay Transportation Authority 2012). However, these independent developers may not have the same priorities and deadlines as agencies. For example, if a developer does OneBusAway Multi-Region – Rapidly Expanding Mobile Transit Apps to New Cities Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2014 16 not fill the need for an app on a particular platform or an app with particular features (e.g., an accessible interface for individuals with visual or other disabilities), then no such app will exist. Additionally, not all cities in the U.S. have robust high-tech transit populations and developer communities. In these cities, app growth is more modest (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit 2012). And, since real-time transit data formats often differ between cities, apps for one city cannot be shared easily with another. OneBusAway, a real-time transit information system originally created by researchers at the University of Washington (UW) (Figure 1), takes a new approach to the problem of transit information dissemination (University of Washington 2012).