tad t ravel a ssistance m obile a pp to h elp t ransit r iders sean j. barbeau center for urban...
TRANSCRIPT
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
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TAD - TRAVEL ASSISTANCE MOBILE APP
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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
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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
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– 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
FIELD TESTS AT FIVE FLORIDA AGENCIES
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• 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)
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
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NEXT STEPS
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• 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
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