TAD Travel Assistance Mobile App to Help Transit Riders
description
Transcript of TAD Travel Assistance Mobile App to Help Transit Riders
TADTRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
TO HELP TRANSIT RIDERS
Sean J. BarbeauCenter for Urban Transportation Research &
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Research funded by the Florida Department of Transportation, the National Center for Transit Research, and the Transportation Research Board IDEA Program
The ChallengesPotential Rider
• Individuals with mental/cognitive disabilities (14.3M Americans, 6% of pop.)¹ often have problems with quick actions required by transit
• Paratransit option limits livability and curtails independence
Transit Agency• Paratransit is expensive:
$27.90 per one-way trip versus $3.20 per one-way trip (bus) and can be restrictive to riders
• Travel training helps reduce learning curve for fixed route transit but demand outpaces supply
1 - National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. “Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)”, 1997.
• Develop first navigation app for public transportation using GPS-enabled mobile phones– Alert user when to get off the bus
with audio, visual, and tactile prompts
– Target simplicity, with cognitively disabled in mind
– Use defacto standard General Transit Feed Spec. for data
SOLUTION: TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
33
TAD WEB PAGE – CREATE TRIPS
4
TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
5
Transit Rider Selects Trip That Was Planned On Website
TADTAD
Cancel Select
Select Trip
(1) Home to Work(2) Work to Home(3) Home to Movie
TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
6
Work to HomeWork to Home
Back
5 DOWNTOWNNext Bus:
9:58 minutes
– While waiting for bus, rider sees estimated time until arrival and headsign for bus (vibration alert w/ 5 min. left)
Work to HomeWork to Home
Back
5 DOWNTOWNNext Bus:
9:58 minutes9:589:579:569:559:549:539:529:519:509:499:489:479:469:459:449:439:429:419:402:00
TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
7
– When the vehicle is within ~2 minutes of arrival, "NOW ARRIVING...” shows, with vibration alert
Work to HomeWork to Home
Back
5 DOWNTOWN
NOW ARRIVING...
On Bus…
Then the user hears: “Get Ready!” a few stops before destination
Work to HomeWork to Home
Back
Distance to Final Stop:5.6 miles
5 DOWNTOWN
TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
Then, “Pull the Cord Now!” when the rider should exit the bus
TADTAD
OK
Pull the Cord Now!
(+Sound and Vibration)
TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
TAD WEB PAGE – REAL-TIME TRACKING
10
FIELD TESTS AT FIVE FLORIDA AGENCIES
11
• Initially developed with Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) in Tampa, FL– With travel trainer Mark Sheppard
• Tested in four more counties:– Pinellas– Sarasota– Miami-Dade– Broward
COLLABORATION WITH FLORIDA MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTE
• Partnered with Florida Mental Health Institute to study impact of TAD on real transit riders
• Purpose:– Determine if prompts given by TAD would exhibit
stimulus control over participants’ behavior of:1. Pulling the stop request cord2. Exit the bus at the appropriate stop.
• 3 participants with moderate intellectual disabilities riding Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (safeguards in place)
IDENTICAL RESULTS: 33 DATA POINTS WITH 3 PARTICIPANTS
Exit Bus
Request Stop
USF PARTNERSHIP WITH DAJUTA
• USF has partnered with DAJUTA to offer TAD as a commercial service to transit riders and transit agencies
• Blackberry app available, Android coming soon…
• See dajuta.com for more info
14
NEXT STEPS
15
• Explore how TAD could help other populations– Visual/hearing impairments, physical impairments– Additional collaboration with USF FMHI– Collaboration with Veterans Administration
• Other mobile app research:– TRAC-IT – travel behavior research tool– Personalized real-time travel info, based on predicted
destinations and paths– OpenTripPlanner – multimodal trip planning
QUESTIONS?
Sean J. Barbeau, M.S. Comp.Sci.
Research Associate Center for Urban Transportation Research University of South Florida http://locationaware.usf.edu
16