Presenting demand-responsive transit on an equal level as fixed-route transit TRB International Conference on Demand Responsive Transit in Monterey, California / 31-October-2014

1. PARATRANSIT:
NOT 2ND CLASS
INFORMATION
Presenting demand-responsive transit on
an equal level as fixed-route transit
TRB International Conference on Demand
Responsive Transit / 31-October-2014
Aaron Antrim, Trillium
Portland, Oregon

2. Paratransit information is buried,
presented separately from fixed-route
The word “Paratransit” does
not appear on this page.

3. Paratransit information is buried,
presented separately from fixed-route

4. Better: Presented on an equal level
But, DRT is not in the
fixed-route planner

5. Even better: Integrating
presentation of fixed-route
and DRT.
Allow customers to find
and compare options.
Plan multi-modal trips.
Douglas County, Oregon
douglasrides.trilliumtransit.com

7. Even better:
Integrating
presentation of fixed-route
and DRT.
Allow customers to find
and compare options.
Plan multi-modal trips.

8. Even better: Integrating presentation of
fixed-route and DRT.
California’s Inland Empire is implementing a trip
planner that uses open-source software for DRT
and fixed-route trip planning.
• Open-source “OneClick” software
(https://github.com/camsys/oneclick)
• Utilizes OpenTripPlanner for fixed-route
planning (www.opentripplanner.org)

13. TOWARD FURTHER
INTEGRATION
&
EASE-OF-USE
CHALLENGES to integration

14. Lessons from fixed-route transit
• The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)
has become the de facto standard for fixed-route
transit schedules
(https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference)
• Many hundreds of GTFS feeds in the USA;
hundreds more worldwide
• GTFS enables public transit information to be
used in hundreds of applications, including:
• Customer-facing applications such as
Google Maps, Rome2rio.com,
OpenTripPlanner, Mobile apps
• Planning and management contexts

15. GTFS facilitates transit discovery
Transit directions can be everywhere

16. But, there is no equivalent standard
for DRT services
• OneClick uses its own approach to describe
DRT services and areas
• Even General Service Dial-A-Ride and “Flex”
or Deviated Fixed-Route service do not show
up in Google Maps (except Uber)

17. Adapting GTFS for DRT
• One possible approach is to adapt GTFS
• One of the benefits of this approach is the
ability to describe related, and deviated services
in the same dataset as fixed-route
• GTFS Flexible Transit Working Group
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gtfs-flexible-wg)
• Data needs:
• Geospatial
• Schedule windows
• Fares
• Eligibility
• Link to reservations mechanisms

18. Active proposal by Brian Ferris
http://bit.ly/flexible-public-trans
• Route deviation: Resembles scheduled fixed-route, with
geographic zone(s) allowing flexible routing
• Point deviation: Except for some established stops, the
path of the vehicle is undetermined
• Dial-A-Ride and Demand-Responsive Connector
• Request Stops (Hail-and-Ride)

19. Applications for flexible GTFS
• Taxis
• Rural and suburban transit
• Specialized & human service transportation
• Developing world (jitneys)

20. Chicken and egg problem
• If no applications why create data? If no data,
why create applications?
• Solution:
• Implement apps and data at the same time
in a regional or interregional context

21. Aaron Antrim
Trillium Solutions, Inc.
aaron@trilliumtransit.com
Twitter: @trilliumtransit
+1 503-567-8422 ext 3