This document discusses improving issue reporting through the OneBusAway mobile app. It outlines challenges with the current issue reporting process and proposes improvements. Specifically, it suggests directing users to the appropriate reporting channel based on their issue type and allowing replies to user reports. The improvements will be piloted in Tampa by modifying OneBusAway to submit issues via the Open311 standard to SeeClickFix, an issue tracking platform used by local agencies. Pinellas County agencies who use SeeClickFix will provide input on the pilot. The goal is to make issue reporting clearer for users and easier to manage.

1. Center for Urban Transportation Research | University of South Florida
Improving Issue Reporting
in OneBusAway
Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.

2. Challenges
● Florida has highest bike/pedestrian fatality rate
per capita in the nation - two straight years
● Need to identify ways to make multimodal travel
safer
● Issues that affect travel are cross-jurisdictional
o Difficult for the public to understand where an
infrastructure issue (street, light, sidewalk, bench,
bikelane, etc.) should be reported
o Can include city, county, FDOT, transit agencies
● How can we improve issue reporting from the
public to government?

3. OneBusAway
• Many bike/ped travelers use transit
• We can capture some feedback on potential
improvements from OneBusAway users
• We can also improve the current OneBusAway
feedback process:
1. Stop Problem Reporting – Goes to OBA Server
2. Trip Problem Reporting – Goes to OBA Server
3. Contact Us email – Goes to regional email
address

4. 4
CURRENT ONEBUSAWAY
ISSUE REPORTING PROCESS
How do user’s currently send feedback?

5. 5
OBA Feedback
• Currently three primary ways to send
feedback:
1. Stop Problem Reporting – Goes to OBA Server
2. Trip Problem Reporting – Goes to OBA Server
3. Contact Us email – Goes to regional email
address

6. 6
1. Stop Problem Reporting

7. 7
1. Stop Problem Reporting

8. 8
1. Stop Problem Reporting

9. 9
2. Trip Problem Reporting

10. 10
2. Trip Problem Reporting

11. 11
2. Trip Problem Reporting

12. 12
2. Trip Problem Reporting

13. 13
Viewing Stop and Trip Problem Reports
• Accessed via the regional OBA website

14. 14
3. Contact Us email

15. 15
3. Contact Us email

16. 16
3. Contact Us email
onebusaway@gohart.org
• Goes to the regional
OBA contact email
• Can include free text
about anything

17. 17
OneBusAway Feedback Challenges
• Trip and stop problem report viewing
interfaces are hidden behind main admin
account – tiered access not possible
– Also, no way to communicate back to user
• Contact Us emails can be a variety of different
problems, which may be owned by different
agencies/departments
• Difficult to triage/manage issue reports via
these channels

18. 18
IMPROVING
ONEBUSAWAY FEEDBACK
How can we improve the current process?

19. 19
How can we improve feedback
process?
• We want to make the feedback channels clearer
to users
– Direct them to the right channel, based on their
type of feedback
• We want to be able to reply to user reports
• Strategy - examine other tools designed for
triaging/management issue reports
– Open311.org standard
• Vendors such as SeeClickFix and PublicStuff
• Open-source software solutions
• Following are screenshots of how we plan to
revise the OneBusAway mobile app process

20. 20
OneBusAway Improvements

21. 21
Customer Service feedback
• Shows list of
agencies and
phone/email/
web contact
for each (if
available)
• Requires fields
in GTFS
agency.txt for
each agency –
agency_phone
, agency_email
(not currently
in GTFS spec),
agency_url
Hillsborough Area Regional
Transit
Pinellas Suncoast Transit
Authority

22. 22
Stop/Trip problem reports
• Submit to
Open311
backend if
available,
otherwise
submit to OBA
• Will default to
selected issue
type
• Allows user to
pick
stop/location
of problem
Arrival Time Issue
• Bus never came
• Bus came earlier
than predicted
• Bus came later
than predicted
• …
What problem did you see?

23. 23
App feedback
android-app@onebusaway.org
My location problems, no stops on map, etc.
• App feedback
goes to app
developers

24. 24
Ideas for new features
My location problems, no stops on map, etc.
• Ideas for new
features goes
to
OneBusAway
Ideascale site -
http://onebus
away.ideascale
.com/
• Users can vote
on ideas

25. 25
TAMPA PILOT
How we plan to deploy this in Tampa

26. Pinellas County & City of St. Pete
• Using SeeClickFix.com

28. SeeClickFix features
• Branded mobile apps
• Allows users to simply report a problem, complete with
image and location
• Internally directs the report to proper jurisdiction
• Pinellas County / City of St. Pete define the issue
categories, follow-up questions, and jurisdictional
boundaries
• Pinellas County / City of St. Pete can triage issues and
close issues when they are resolved
• “Facebook” style comments, citizens can “upvote”
issues
• Management reports can be run

29. Pinellas County
• Contacts:
– Martin Rose, CIO
– Michael Roiland, Web Manager
• Started as pilot ($40 per month) in 2011
• City of St. Pete began participating
• In June 2014, signed up for enterprise license
(approx. $12k per year) for branded apps,
unlimited internal users, all issue management
and reporting tools
• Willing to provide PSTA a user under their
account to monitor activity related to transit

30. Tampa Pilot
• We’re modifying OneBusAway to submit
issues via the Open311 standard
– Android app will serve as pilot
• In Tampa, pilot will submit issues to
SeeClickFix.com (Open311-compliant)
• PSTA, FDOT, and HART plan to
participate
– HART SeeClickFix license TBD
• Estimated to start late 2015

31. 31
Thanks!
Sean J. Barbeau, Ph.D.
barbeau@cutr.usf.edu
813.974.7208
Principal Mobile Software Architect for R&D
Center for Urban Transportation Research
University of South Florida