Q: Why is transit signal priority not a core technology for the fixed route bus?
A: Wilder: I will let David answer further, but I will say that the transit signal priority for bus rapid transit was looked at as part of the core technologies. We didn't go in-depth. We looked at part of them. They are going to be doing more demonstrations with the Federal Transit Administration on TSP, transit signal priority. But I will let David Jackson go into more detail for the core technologies portion.
David Jackson: Okay. To answer that, it is considered, as you saw, it was a non core, but secondary technology. I think the thinking is that we really looked at what the full list of technologies was and we could ask everything for everybody, but it wouldn't be financially feasible. The impact on rail agencies was higher. The review team figured it was even greater than what it would be for the fixed route bus agency and it was also that there were a lot of other technologies that were higher priority. So with that said, it's not to say that it's not needed, but there's others that there might be a higher return on investment.
Wilder: You'll be seeing a demonstration in the near future on TSP with the Federal Transit Administration.
Q: Aren't automated stop announcements required by the ADA? The second part of that question is: Why isn't that technology considered?
A: Wilder: I'll let David Jackson go into more details, but I do know that especially for buses and rail, on the newer buses they are implementing the automatic stop announcements and on rail. On some of the older buses, they do it manually. They have an enunciated system where they will announce the stops. So yes, it is a requirement of the ADA and we are doing it more and more. Would you like to answer the rest of the question, David?
Jackson: Yeah. I believe the technology that we're talking about for this is more next bus arrival times and such, as opposed to identifying what the vehicle is. ADA requires you to so designate what route is at what stop and such. This is really more specific information as in Route 50 will be arriving in five minutes, as opposed to the next bus coming is Route 50.
Wilder: I'd like to piggyback on that. On the FTA website, Booz Allen Hamilton just finished a study. I was the project manager for next arrival, real time information return on investment study. They did a cost methodology and they mentioned the transit agencies across the United States that are using the next vehicle next bus arrival system. They talk about the ADA, etc. It's on our website. You can download it at www.dot.gov and under the Federal Transit Administration, you'll find this report. If you have any problems finding it, you can just contact me. It asks: Will we have these slides available after the presentation? Yes. Archives will be posted on the web after the presentation.
Jackson: And we will include the notes, as well. It's a voluminous amount of notes.
Q: Did your travel information investigation look at using 5-1-1, the National Travel Information's phone number?
A: Wilder: I know David did. Would you like to explain how you used it?
Jackson: 5-1-1 was brought up for just about every single one of the modes that were discussed. It was specifically brought up, the thinking it's already integrated in most of the modes. We made sure for the rural transit that it was mentioned, because that might be a location where they haven't really thought about integrating 5-1-1 with other systems.
Wilder: Right. I know that for the rural transit, FTA had a study using 2-1-1, which was a little different. The social services would provide individuals with information. It was more specific on how to get to work and it was posted on the website.
Q: Another question: What does MATS mean?
A: Jackson: MATS is actually not an acronym for anything. It's a treadle mat. You pretty much affix it to your entranceway of a bus or a vehicle and it records based on pressure. I believe there might be some type of light that might go with it that you can combine. But it's a recording mat that's hooked up to some type of data gathering device.
Wilder: I understand that Metro uses it on about 10% of the buses.
Jackson: Yes. There's been a lot of agencies talk about 10% anyway. But I think there was a study in the '90s that kind of laid out the 10%. Other agencies have said and it was discussed in the review team that there's no need to deploy this on every single one of your vehicles. That 10% is adequate sampling, which has been both proven in reports and also, like I said, some of the representatives on the review team said that's what they've deployed as well and it seemed to work. What we're trying to do is say you don't have to go all out to deploy technology. What's the bare minimum that you need, that you should have?
Q: There was another question that was asked. What about coordinated systems that include many agencies, public transit, human services, mental health and others?
A: Jackson: Obviously, rural transit can include demand response or fixed route service. The reason we chose these six and also we have it by different sizes as well. We feel like the agencies should kind of be self identifying. We don't want somebody to pass by a brochure or pass by the page on the website because they think, "Oh, gee, I'm a rural transit agency. I'm not a human service transit provider." So it might be similar information provided in each of these brochures or on the web pages, but a lot of times you're self identifying. So we want to make sure we don't miss you. I don't know whether that answered the question or not.
Wilder: I will say from the Department of Transportation's perspective, we have a program with United We Ride called Mobility Services for All Americans. We've coordinated with hundreds of transit providers and services. We're in the process now of doing more demonstrations that will integrate ITS technologies. If you want to know more information about it, you can look at the United We Ride website at FTA.
Jackson: I think you'll notice that most of these technologies, while we do talk about integration, it's more of an internal system integration. The realization is that a lot of the technologies that required multiple agency deployment or integration were seen more as a secondary technology, because it is much harder to try to tie in with another agency. Most of these technologies are items that a single agency can deploy themselves with the thinking of, "What do we need to integrate further later?"
Q: I have another question. For AVL, automatic vehicle locator, were the wireless provider chaperone services offered by firms like Sprint and Verizon analyzed in the study? This market ready service would seem to be a highly cost effective alternative for tracking with almost zero startup and low maintenance costs.
A: Jackson: The answer is yes. Maybe it didn't come out that that was one of the options that we were talking about, especially for the smaller agencies deploying AVL. Exactly what you said, I agree completely. Yes, it is included within the core technologies.
Q: Is data exchange a technology or means to facility coordination? Is the data exchanged through Google Transit becoming the new data exchange transit standard? How will it be incorporated in the NIA? Also, in thinking about data exchange, are APTA's TCIP 3.00 and National ITS architecture internally consistent for definition of data elements? How and when might Google Transit data exchange be integrated? Let's go back with the first part of this question. It was, is data exchange a technology or means to facility coordination?
A: Jackson: It's a means to facilitate coordination.
Wilder: Yes.
Jackson: There are a lot of different methods to provide data exchange. I think the technologies that we've laid out are areas that can accept data and think about how to coordinate with others. Like I said, while we've talked about data exchange, it really is an internal data exchange for the most part of these technologies within a single agency. There are certain, obviously with the human service transit, we're talking about brokerages which require some data exchange. As far as being consistent with the standards that you were mentioning, we didn't really get into all the standards. We were more kind of listing systems, not the details of the systems.
Wilder: David, I do know that in the very near future, APTA is taking the lead with the National Transit Institute and with FTA and Federal Highway Administration. They're going to be developing a training module that will develop a package for the type of standards mentioned that he was asking about the TCIP. This will be coming out in probably five or six months from now. That may answer some of these questions. Okay, the last part was how and when might Google Transit data exchange be integrated?
Jackson: I don't really have an answer for that right now.
Wilder: I do know that one of the topics that we may be offering in the future that we discussed, we may be doing a T3 webinar on open software. At that time, we could answer some of these questions.
Q: It says basically many of the light rail vehicles have a very limited space to integrate many of these technologies that were discussed today. Has there been a study or overview to consider how to integrate these technologies, such as using GPS tags within Motorola push to talk portable radios that are used by drivers and train drivers, so that these can be displayed at the operation control centers and if these technologies are copasetic with motor pool and depot managers? Have you done any surveys about the impact on the space needed and the voltage needed to deploy these devices on light rail vehicles as well as buses? We're running out of space.
A: Jackson: There was discussion about exactly what you were saying by the review team on how much space do these systems actually take up. In addition, we have developed a light rail research plan with the FTA of how to consolidate all the systems, better layouts for the systems to accommodate the new systems and the existing systems. That was discussed. We really didn't go into a lot of detail on that. So the answer is it should be discussed further. That's not really a full answer of your question, but we did talk about it.
Caller #1: That's very well understood, yes. Thank you.
Q: What is the similarity of the systems used in the freight trucking industry with their AVL MDT applications?
A: Jackson: That's something we would have to get back to you on. We really didn't talk about the freight AVL systems. However, low cost AVL technology was brought up. I really couldn't tell you about the trucking industry's deployment of AVL GPS and other systems. But I know it's pretty widespread. That really wasn't part of the conversation at that time. But I think that's worth looking into.
Q: Another question ... on transit signal priority. Does it cause bus bunching?
A: Jackson: For buses, it's not supposed to. There have been enough deployments of transit signal priority for buses now and supposedly, it's only supposed to be if situations arise. So it's not supposed to be automatically set off or put into operation, unless you're so much out of the norm. In theory, it's not supposed to cause bunching.
Wilder: Especially since you have your own special bus lane
Q: One of the questions that's been asked about five times was, when will the fact sheets be available?
A: Jackson: We should be posting some fact sheets within the next couple of weeks and thereafter, we'll be putting on more and more. It should be up to about 70 different types of fact sheets that come out. Once again, some of the questions, you'll not see all the answers of these questions within the fact sheets. This was initiated by a lot of general managers that were scratching their heads saying, "I'm not that technical. Please try to tell me something in laymen's terms, in simple non-technical terms." So some of these questions on freight trucking and impacts on bus bunching, I don't really think it will necessarily show up here in this. It really more explains what the system is, what the system looks like, how much you could figure that it costs, and do you need anything else to go along with it to make it really work? Most AVL, unless it's integrated with some other system, doesn't do much. But to answer that question, within the next couple of weeks you should start seeing a continuous rollout of these fact sheets
Q: You mentioned cost on the fact sheets. What is the source for your cost data? Is this new or is it from the benefits and cost database still?
A: Johnson: It's actually more than just the benefit cost database. Benefit cost database has quite a number of resources, but I went in and found another 20 or so documents that have laid out transit costs. We're trying to set it-- I need to talk to FTA more about what I'm going to do with this spreadsheet that I have. But I have it broken down by the different components that would go into AVL or different components that would go into communication systems or different types of transit information, etc. I wouldn't mind having a lookup table that you could go in and actually look and see. You can kind of identify who your peer is and how much did it cost them?
Caller #2: I think overall, that spreadsheet will be helpful. I think if it's available for the agencies that could be something that's of value.
Jackson: I agree with you, because I used to work for local transit. While we turned to the FTA for quite a bit of information, we also turned to our peers quite a bit for information. If you can see what your comparable is with an agency that's about your size and conducting the same type of services, then I think that might be more helpful to you and then you can also be able to-- we want to provide not necessarily phone numbers to particular individuals, because individuals move around. But you can see who are the ITS or technology deployers of a certain agency. So you could at least contact that agency and talk to that office.
Caller #2: Thank you.
Jackson: Sure.
Q: Will there be a blog or tool to keep the fact sheets up to date and additional lessons learned?
A: Jackson: We're going to be posting the fact sheets on a number of different websites, like you saw. I don't see the fact sheets first and for another two or three years being needed to be kept up to date. Additional lessons learned, there is a lessons learned database that's sponsored by the ITS Joint Program Office. I'm not sure what the other lessons learned would be. It should be posted under what's new within the ITS PCB website and possibly other websites that we pass it on to. The second question, are there grant opportunities coming up that we should be aware of that support system integration for transit and other transportation resources? Charlene, you can respond to that.
Wilder: Okay. All of our grant opportunities are posted on our FTA website to a Federal Register notice. We also work with the Federal Highway Administration under their website. The announcements are solicited. There was one that closed a few months ago. It was on congestion mitigation, which is one of our key initiatives for the Department of Transportation. These are where you'll find the opportunities for funding.
