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 WEB PAGE – CREATE TRIPS

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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

TAD WEB PAGE – REAL-TIME TRACKING

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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)

IDENTICAL RESULTS: 33 DATA POINTS WITH 3 PARTICIPANTS

Exit Bus

Request Stop

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

813.974.7208barbeau@cutr.usf.edu

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