By the end of Lesson 9, you should be able to:
Lesson 9 will take 1 week to complete. Please refer to Canvas for specific timeframes, submission instructions, and due dates.
To finish this lesson, you must complete the assignments listed below. The details for each assignment are provided in the referenced section and in Canvas.
Assignment No. | Assignment Description | Section | Grade Component / Points |
---|---|---|---|
9-1 | Conduct an exercise using Network Analyst’s vehicle routing problem solver. | 9.1 | Lesson Topic / 20 |
9-2 | Calculate the revenue implications of basing a DRT fare structure on shortest vs. fastest routes. | 9.1 | Lesson Topic / 15 |
9-3 | Explore CUTR and address some specific questions. | 9.2 | Transportation Organizations / 15 |
9-4 | Participate in a one-on-one video conference with a classmate (or myself) and submit a summary of the conversation. | 9.3 | Class Participation / 15 |
9-5 | Participate in this week’s webinar and submit a summary of what you learned. | 9.4 | Guest Webinar / 15 |
9-6 | Review the background material for next week’s webinar and respond to some questions. | 9.5 | Guest Webinar / 10 |
9-7 | Submit 3 - 5 questions for next week’s speaker. | 9.5 | Guest Webinar / 5 |
Transit organizations typically offer two distinctly different types of service: Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT) and fixed route transportation. Fixed route transportation operates according to prescribed routes and schedules whereas DRT does not. In this lesson, we will look at DRT. Fixed route will be covered in Lesson 10.
DRT is generally designed to provide curb to curb or door to door service for individuals who have special transportation needs such as seniors and persons with disabilities. The availability of DRT services can vary significantly from state to state and even county to county based on funding availability. DRT differs from taxi service in two fundamental ways:
DRT services are generally designed to serve rural areas where fixed route transit is not practical due to low ridership and also to complement fixed route services for those who live near a fixed route but are unable to use it due to physical or cognitive limitations.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in a number of areas including public transportation. The FTA has defined a series of requirements public transit providers need to meet to comply with the ADA. These requirements are found in Title 49 Part 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). In these regulations, the FTA requires fixed route providers to provide DRT service, comparable to the level of service provided to individuals who are able to utilize fixed route services, to persons with disabilities. DRT services designed to address the needs of persons with disabilities is known as paratransit service. Specifically, bus or rail fixed route providers are required to offer paratransit services to individuals who are unable to use the fixed route service due to physical and/or cognitive limitations, who live within ¾ of a mile of a fixed route and are traveling to a destination which is also within ¾ of a mile of a fixed route. This requirement is challenging and costly for transit providers to fulfill. It applies to all providers, and not just those who are receiving federal funding. It is also an unfunded mandate in that FTA does not provide grant monies to transit agencies to help offset the cost of compliance. You’ll complete an assignment next week to evaluate the eligibility of a series of trips for complementary paratransit service.
Providing DRT services in a way which is both cost effective and customer friendly is a very challenging task. The number of riders requesting service can vary substantially from day to day as can the trip origins and destinations. Service requests are initiated by riders through a call to a Customer Service Representative (CSR). Reservations typically need to be made at least 24 hours before service. Generally, the day before services are delivered, schedulers need to determine how to accommodate all of the reservations for the day with a limited number of vehicles and drivers. Further, the schedulers need to ensure a wide variety of constraints are met including promised pickup time, required drop off times (e.g., for medical appointments) and total ride time. On the day of service, dispatchers work with the drivers to ensure all trips are successfully completed. Drivers follow a trip manifest which defines which stops they will visit and the order in which they will visit them. Drivers also need to track a variety of data elements at each stop including arrival and departure times, the passengers boarding and alighting at each stop, the vehicle odometer reading, and the amount of money collected from each passenger.
For all but the smallest providers, it would be very difficult to manage DRT service without technology. The most important technology which providers use is DRT software. Most DRT software assists the providers with all of the key tasks associated with delivering and reporting on the service. Many systems incorporate Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technology, which allows the dispatcher to monitor the location of all of their vehicles. This can be extremely useful in terms of ensuring drivers stay on task and follow the manifest. Some of the more sophisticated packages can do automated scheduling. These systems determine the best vehicle for a given trip reservation. DRT scheduling is very complex owing to the large number of variables involved, many of which are related to human behavior, and as a result, even software that can do automated scheduling cannot produce good schedules without significant scheduler oversight.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology is also playing an increasingly important role in DRT operations. Typically, systems which incorporate IVR will configure the system to automatically call riders the night before a scheduled trip to remind them of the trip and give them an opportunity to cancel the trip. Systems will also generally automatically call the riders when the vehicle is approaching their location. These calls, known as imminent arrival calls, are valuable for both the provider and riders. Providers benefit because the calls ensure riders will be ready, and riders benefit since the calls give them a clear idea of when to be ready and eliminate the need for them to wait outside for a prolonged period. IVR plays a significant role in reducing “No-Shows” where the driver gets to a location to pick up a rider and the rider is not there. No-shows add additional costs to a service which is already expensive to provide.
Many providers give their drivers Mobile Digital Computers (MDC) which serve a variety of functions. More and more DRT software vendors are shifting to tablet technology instead of using proprietary hardware. MDCs provide additional communications with dispatch via canned or ad hoc text messages. The MDCs also generally present the trip manifest information to the driver in an electronic form and tell the driver their next stop location, how well they are adhering to the schedule, how many passengers should be boarding and alighting at each stop, and how much money they should collect from each person. The driver also uses the MDC to capture the information they need to collect such as the stop arrival time, the passengers who boarded and who alighted the vehicle at the stop, how much they collected from each rider, and what time they departed from the stop. MDCs can also be configured to provide the driver with turn by turn directions and eliminate the need for a separate GPS device.
Transit agencies use a number of different methodologies to establish a fare structure for their DRT services. The three most common are listed below:
Flat – In a flat fare structure, as the name implies, the cost of the trip is the same regardless of origin and destination, assuming both are within the agency’s service area.
Zone Based – In a zone based fare structure, the agency divides its service area into zones. The zones are generally comprised of a series of concentric circles or a rectangular grid which blankets the service area. Fares are then established for each origin and destination zone.
Mileage Based – In a mileage based fare structure, the agency develops a series of mileage based tiers and associates a fare with each. The mileage associated with each trip depends only on the origin and destination and not on other pickups or drop-offs the driver may have performed while the passenger is on the vehicle. Consider the following example:
Ellen makes a reservation to go to the senior center on Monday at 10 am. On Friday afternoon, the agency’s scheduler is working with their paratransit software to finalize the driver manifests (i.e., schedules) for Monday morning. This process involves determining the most efficient way to deliver the service while at the same time observing customer service policies such as ensuring all riders get to their appointments on time and do not exceed the maximum onboard time established by the agency. On Monday morning, the drivers depart the transit agency and begin to execute the manifests (i.e., schedules) that have been prepared for them. The driver assigned to pick up Ellen arrives at her house to pick her up at 8:45 am. The driver then drives to Allen’s house to pick him up and on to Sue’s house to pick her up. He then drives to the VA hospital to drop off Allen and to Walmart to drop off Sue. Finally, he drives to the senior center and drops Ellen off at 9:50 am.
The driver may have visited many stops while Ellen was on the vehicle, but the mileage used for fare determination is based only on the route from her origin to her destination. When an agency uses a mileage based fare structure, they can base the mileage on the fastest route from origin to destination or the shortest distance route from origin to destination.
In this assignment, you will complete Exercise 8 [1] of ESRI’s ArcGIS Network Analyst Tutorial and review the help topic on the “Vehicle Routing Problem Analysis.” The Vehicle Route Solver illustrates the algorithms DRT software employs to help providers schedule DRT trips. As you’re completing the exercise, address the following items and submit your responses in the form of an M.S. Word document to Assignment 9-1 in Canvas.
In this assignment, you’ll use Network Analyst to examine the revenue impacts of changing the way a transit agency calculates fares for DRT service. Address the items below, and submit your responses in the form of an M.S. Word document to Assignment 9-2 in Canvas.
ABC Transit, a fictitious transit agency in San Francisco, has a mileage based fare structure which is based on the following 7 tiers:
Trip Distance (miles) | Fare |
---|---|
<1 | $8 |
1-1.999 | $10 |
2-2.999 | $15 |
3-4.999 | $20 |
5-9.999 | $25 |
10-19.999 | $35 |
>=20 | $50 |
ABC Transit bases the trip distance on the fastest route between the origin and destination. However, some riders have measured the distance of their trips themselves and have complained that ABC Transit is not using the correct mileage. To avoid these types of rider complaints, ABC Transit is considering using the short route to determine trip distances for fare determination. However, before doing so, they want to determine what impact this change will have on their annual revenue. In this assignment, you will use a day’s worth of trip requests to estimate the impacts on annual revenue. In practice, you would use a much larger sample of historic data (perhaps 3 months).
For this assignment you should complete the following steps:
def Fare(TripDist): if TripDist < 1: return 8 elif TripDist < 2: return 10 elif TripDist < 3: return 15 elif TripDist < 5: return 20 elif TripDist < 10: return 25 elif TripDist < 20: return 35 else: return 50
def Fare(TripDist): if TripDist < 1: return 8 elif TripDist < 2: return 10 elif TripDist < 3: return 15 elif TripDist < 5: return 20 elif TripDist < 10: return 25 elif TripDist < 20: return 35 else: return 50
This week, you’ll take some time to get to know the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR). CUTR is an internationally recognized transportation research group which is part of the University of South Florida and is known for developing both innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems. Founded in 1988, CUTR is staffed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers who conduct research on behalf of both public and private project sponsors. While CUTR is active in all modes of transportation, they have particular strength in the area of public transportation. The National Center for Transit Research (NCTR) is housed within CUTR and, together with the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB), host a GIS in Transit conference which generally meets once every few years. A link to the upcoming 10th GIS in Transit conference is here [3].
Read through CUTR’s 2016 Annual Report [4]. Also, watch this webcast [5] (49:24) on a recent project they did titled “Closing the Loop – Improving Transit Through Crowd-sourced Information.” Address the following items, and submit your responses in M.S. Word format to Assignment 9-3 in Canvas.
This week, you’ll have a one-on-one chat with one of your classmates (or me) as per the schedule you were provided in Week 1. The discussion should be at least 30 minutes in length. If it’s the first time you’ve chatted with each other, spend the majority of time getting to know each other. Otherwise, focus on discussing the lesson content.
Submit a brief summary of the conversation (no more than 300 words) in M.S. Word format to Assignment 9-4 in Canvas. The summary you’ll submit is an individual assignment and is not intended to be a joint activity. If it’s the first time you’ve spoken with each other, your summary should primarily address what you learned about each other (e.g., what do you have in common?). Otherwise, your summary should focus on ideas and insights about the lesson content which came out of the conversation.
Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Followed Instructions | Excellent: Student carefully followed all instructions for the assignment. 4.0 pts |
Satisfactory: Student's submission exhibited some minor deviations from the instructions for the assignment. 2.5 pts |
Poor: Student's submission exhibited major deviations from the instructions for the assignment. 1.0 pts |
4.0 pts |
Content Quality | Excellent: Student's submittal reflected a conversation which was highly thoughtful and productive and provided substantial benefit in getting to know each other better and/or exploring lesson topics. 7.0 pts |
Satisfactory: Student's submittal reflected a conversation which was somewhat thoughtful and productive and provided some limited benefit in getting to know each other better and/or exploring lesson topics. 5.0 pts |
Poor: Student's submittal reflected a conversation which had little value in getting to know each other better and/or exploring lesson topics. 1.0 pts |
7.0 pts |
Writing Quality | Excellent: Student’s writing was organized, clear, and concise and was free from spelling and grammatical errors. 4.0 pts |
Satisfactory: Student’s writing exhibited some deficiencies in the area of organization, clarity, and conciseness and/or contained a few spelling or grammatical errors. 2.5 pts |
Poor: Student’s writing exhibited major deficiencies in the area of organization, clarity, and conciseness and/or contained many spelling or grammatical errors. 1.0 pts |
4.0 pts |
Total Points: 15.0 |
This week’s speaker is Ryan Harshbarger. For details about Ryan’s current role and background refer to the previous lesson.
After attending the webinar, prepare a brief write-up (300 – 500 words) summarizing the session and submit it in M.S. Word format to Assignment 9-5 in Canvas. In your summary, address the following:
Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Followed Instructions | Excellent: Student carefully followed all instructions for the assignment. 4.0 pts |
Satisfactory: Student's submission exhibited some minor deviations from the instructions for the assignment. 2.5 pts |
Poor: Student's submission exhibited major deviations from the instructions for the assignment. 1.0 pts |
4.0 pts |
Content Quality | Excellent: The student's submittal demonstrated that the student paid close attention during the webinar and carefully reflected on the key topics which were covered. 7.0 pts |
Satisfactory: The student's submittal demonstrated that the student was somewhat attentive during the webinar and engaged in limited reflection on the key topics which were covered. 4.0 pts |
Poor: The student's submittal provided little or no evidence that the student paid careful attention during the webinar or reflected on the topics which were covered. 1.0 pts |
7.0 pts |
Writing Quality | Excellent: Student’s writing was organized, clear, and concise and was free from spelling and grammatical errors. 4.0 pts |
Satisfactory: Student’s writing exhibited some deficiencies in the area of organization, clarity, and conciseness and/or contained a few spelling or grammatical errors. 2.5 pts |
Poor: Student’s writing exhibited major deficiencies in the area of organization, clarity, and conciseness and/or contained many spelling or grammatical errors. 1.0 pts |
4.0 pts |
Total Points: 15.0 |
Next week, we will have a webinar with Mr. Rodney Bunner, President of ServiceEdge Solutions.
Mr. Bunner is a Geospatial Technology Specialist who over the past twenty years has worked as a consultant to local, regional, state, and federal agencies in developing spatially-enabled and GIS-T applications. Mr. Bunner has contributed to the development of a variety of software products and tools within different government sectors including:
As a public-sector consultant, Mr. Bunner’s professional objective has been to develop software applications which streamline the technically challenging and time-consuming data integration, data development, and analytical processes required to fulfill specific government business needs and workflows. To this end, over the past thirteen years, Mr. Bunner has been lead developer for the Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) TBEST Transit Planning software. TBEST provides public transportation agencies with business-specific data, analytics, and reporting tools to address everyday service and strategic planning tasks. Mr. Bunner supports numerous agencies throughout the U.S. in implementing and utilizing TBEST.
Mr. Bunner is currently the President of ServiceEdge Solutions, a technology company primarily focused on the development of geospatial applications for Transportation. He is a 1991 graduate of West Virginia University with a B.A. in Geography and a 1996 graduate of Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania with a M.S. in Environmental Studies. He currently resides in the Tampa, Florida area with his wife and two children.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is intended to ensure people are not discriminated against on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs which utilize federal funding. Title VI, and the regulations which FTA has put in place to implement it, place specific requirements on transit providers, especially those who provide fixed route services.
TBEST is a tool developed by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to help organizations analyze existing fixed route transit service and potential service changes which are being considered. CUTR has played a big role in the development of the software and also in providing support to agencies who want to use it. A CUTR webinar (57:16) on TBEST can be found here [6]. I provide this link for your reference, but watching it is optional. The main speaker in the webinar is Rodney Bunner, next week’s speaker. Consequently, Rodney will likely cover much of the same material in our webinar with him next week.
For this assignment, complete the following activities:
Once you have completed the above activities, respond to the following items and submit them in the form of an M.S. Word document to Assignment 9-6 in Canvas.
After reviewing the background material for next week’s webinar and the biography for next week’s speaker, come up with 3-5 questions which are clearly stated and are relevant to the webinar topics. Submit the questions to the Lesson 9 Questions for Next Week’s Speaker assignment in Canvas.
Criteria | Ratings | Points | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Question Quality |
Excellent: Questions were clearly worded, demonstrated a thorough review of the background material and thoughtful reflection and insight on the part of the student.
5.0 pts
|
Satisfactory: Questions were somewhat clear, demonstrated some review of the background material and some reflection and insight on the part of the student.
3.0 pts
|
Poor: Questions were unclear and/or demonstrated little or no review of the background material and/or demonstrated little or no reflection and insight on the part of the student.
1.0 pts
|
5.0 pts |
Total Points: 5.0 |
In this lesson, you learned about DRT services including some of the challenges inherent to DRT and the technologies agencies commonly employ to help them manage and deliver these services. You also learned how DRT software can help transit providers schedule trip requests by completing an exercise on Network Analyst’s vehicle routing solver.
This week you explored CUTR, an important transportation research organization housed at the University of South Florida.
In our weekly webinar, you had the chance to interact with Mr. Ryan Harshbarger and learn about the operations of a transit system and the real time bus data which many agencies make available to their riders to improve customer service.
In preparation for next week’s webinar, you learned about Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how it impacts fixed route providers in particular. You also had a chance to explore TBEST, a tool you’ll have a chance to work with in next week’s lesson.
Finally, you had the opportunity to get to know one of your classmates a little better and share some of your ideas and questions about this week’s lesson materials.
If there is anything in the Lesson 9 materials about which you would like to ask a question or provide a comment, submit a posting to the Lesson 9 Questions and Comments discussion in Canvas. Also, review others’ postings to this discussion and respond if you have something to offer or if you are able to help.
Links
[1] http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.4/extensions/network-analyst/exercise-8-finding-best-routes-to-service-a-set-of-paired-orders.htm
[2] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog497c/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.geog497c/files/Files/TripODs.zip
[3] http://www.urisa.org/education-events/gis-in-transit-conference/
[4] https://www.cutr.usf.edu/2016/03/annual-report-flipbook/
[5] https://cutr.adobeconnect.com/p3jnwc7cj76/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal
[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqiie3XGnnQ&feature=youtu.be
[7] https://psu.instructure.com/files/81544532/download?download_frd=1
[8] http://tbest.org
[9] http://tbest.org/tbest-video-tutorials/
[10] https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FTA_Title_VI_FINAL.pdf