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

• 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flex Route Service Concept

Flex route

Fixed route

Stop

DRT Service Concept

2

15

5

3

4

2

1

4

3

1

1

pickup

drop off

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)

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

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

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

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

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