A description of the OneBusAway open-source project and the deployment in Tampa, FL related to multimodal traveler information

1. OneBusAway
An open-source platform for
Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

2. What is OneBusAway?
 Suite of open-source tools that provides real-time bus/train
tracking information
 Agency sets up open-source server, native apps provided by community
 Free to riders
 Maintained by board, consortium of organizations, volunteers
 Universities
 Transit Agencies
 Vendors/Consultants
 ~330k (30-day) active users of Android and iOS apps
 ~30k (30-day) active users in Tampa
 Why? Make riding public transit easier by providing good
information in usable formats
 Research evaluates the impact on riders and agencies
Real-time arrival info
http://onebusaway.org

3. Research using OneBusAway
 Real-time information (RTI) has many benefits
 Shorter perceived wait time [1][8]
 Shorter actual wait time[1]
 Increased feeling of safety (e.g., at night) [5][6]
 Improved perception of agency[8]
 Increased ridership[7]
 Quality of real-time info is important
 In one study, 9% of riders said they took the bus
less often due to errors in RTI[9]
[1] Kari Edison Watkins, Brian Ferris, Alan Borning, G. Scott Rutherford, and David Layton (2011), "Where Is My Bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Vol. 45 pp. 839-848.
[4] Aaron Steinfeld and John Zimmerman, "Interviews with transit riders in San Francisco and Seattle," ed, 2010.
[5] Brian Ferris, Kari Watkins, and Alan Borning (2010), "OneBusAway: results from providing real-time arrival information for public transit," in Proceedings of the 28th International CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, pp. 1807-1816.
[6] A. Gooze, K. Watkins, and A. Borning (2013), "Benefits of Real-Time Information and the Impacts of Data Accuracy on the Rider Experience," in Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 13, 2013.
[7] Brakewood, Macfarlane and Watkins (2015). The Impact of Real-Time Information on Bus Ridership in New York City. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Volume 53, pp. 59-7
[8] Brakewood, Barbeau, and Watkins (2014). An experiment evaluating the impacts of real-time transit information on bus riders in Tampa, Florida,, Transportation Research Part A, Volume 69, pp. 409-422.
[9] A. Gooze, K. Watkins, and A. Borning (2013), “Benefits of Real-Time Information and the Impacts of Data Accuracy on the Rider Experience,” in Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 13, 2013.
Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger

4. Where is OneBusAway?
4
Seattle WA:
Original deployment 2008
New York, NY:
Adapted for the MTA
(Bus Time)
Washington, DC:
Launched Feb. 2016
Tampa, FL:
Launched
Summer 2013
York, CA:
Launched 2015
http://onebusaway.org
San Diego, CA:
Launched Jan. 2016
Rogue Valley, OR:
Launched Sept. 2015
Lappeenranta , Finland:
Beta
Sroda Wielkopolska,
Poland:
Launched May 2016

5. Multi-region architecture
 Region information
is stored in
centralized server
directory
 Apps finds nearby
regions using
Regions API
 Same native apps
supported in
multiple cities!
Barbeau, Borning, Watkins. “OneBusAway Multi-region: Rapidly expanding mobile transit apps to new cities,”
Journal of Public Transportation – Vol. 17 No. 4 (2014).

6. Open-source native apps
Android iPhone
https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-application-modules

7. Current OneBusAway Project Members
 Universities
 Georgia Tech (Kari Watkins)
 University of South Florida (Sean Barbeau)
 University of Washington (Alan Borning)
 Transit Agencies
 Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (Shannon Haney)
 San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, San Diego, California (Devin Braun)
 York Region Transit (Rajeev Roy)
 Atlanta Regional Commission
 Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City (William Wong)
 Sound Transit (Michael Berman)
 Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Washington DC
(Stephanie Lynn Jones)
 Companies and Non-profits
 Cambridge Systematics (Eric Ziering)
 goEuropa (Wojciech Kulesza)
 Trillium Transit (Aaron Antrim)
 TransitScreen (Matt Caywood)
 Conveyal (David Emory)
 Individual Developers
 Aaron Brethorst
 Sean Óg Crudden
 Kurt Raschke
https://onebusaway.org/the-onebusaway-project/project-
members/

8. Current OneBusAway Board Members
 Universities
 Georgia Tech (Kari Watkins)
 University of South Florida (Sean Barbeau)
 University of Washington (Alan Borning)
 Transit Agencies
 Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (Shannon Haney)
 San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, San Diego,
California (Devin Braun)
 York Region Transit (Rajeev Roy)
 Companies and Non-profits
 Cambridge Systematics (Eric Ziering)
 goEuropa (Wojciech Kulesza)
 Trillium Solutions (Aaron Antrim)
 Individual Developers
 Aaron Brethorst
 Sean Óg Crudden
https://onebusaway.org/the-onebusaway-project/project-
members/

9. Enhanced customer support added 2016
 Send customer feedback via Open311 protocol to ANY system
 Enables discovery of issue categories per geographic location
 HART is managing feed with using SeeClickFix product
 Funded by FDOT Research Office
Open311
Open311-
compliant
system
Request issue categories for a
location
Send issue to server w/ contact info

10.  Real-time trip plans
via bikeshare and bus
 Funded by:
 Data from:
Bikeshare added late 2017
Real-time info, trip planning, and bikeshare in native iOS and Android apps

11. Link to Flamingo Fares added 2018
If payment app
isn’t installed, user
goes to listing on
Google Play
If payment app is
installed, user goes
straight to app

12. TPA SkyConnect, Water Taxi added 2018
 Added by HART in their GTFS
data
 Currently only schedule
information
 Real-time can be added when
available
 Cross Bay Ferry discussions
underway

13. Service Alert Management
 HART deployed a feature developed for WMATA that allows publishing
scheduled service alerts across mobile apps and websites

14. Analytics
 Google Analytics is available on the
OneBusAway iOS and Android apps
 Provides anonymous, aggregate
analytics on usage of information
within the app and number of real-
time and historical users
 Other stats that help explain
traveler behavior, like “User
distance to stop when accessing
information” are also available
Real-time and historical analytics
User distance to stop when accessing information

15. Active research projects
 USF is adding a feature to help users exit the bus at the right stop
 Based on previous research for “Travel Assistance Device (TAD)” app to
help riders with intellectual disabilities use transit
 USF is working on adding the ability for riders to opt-in to contributing
origin/destination/travel path data
 Can be used to build OD matrices and augment transit ridership studies
 Can also look at mode transitions between transit and bikeshare,
transportation network companies, and more

16. Options for rebranding app
 Can create new app on
Google Play and App
Store
 Uses same source code
but different name,
colors, and logo
 OneBusAway
 Agency X
 Agency Y
 Requires extra
maintenance to update
apps
http://bit.ly/onebusaway-rebranding
OneBusAway Agency X Agency Y

17. Next steps
 Add new systems using open data approach so all apps can benefit:
 Cross Bay Ferry
 Transportation Networking Companies (e.g., Uber, Lyft)
 Flex service (e.g., HART)
 TECO Streetcar
 USF Bull Runner
 Downtowner/Uptowner
 USF AV Transit Feasibility Study-related service
 Aviation/cruise availability?

18. Thanks!
@sjbarbeau
linkedin.com/in/seanbarbeau
Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.
barbeau@usf.edu
813.974.7208

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